Snow Cat!
Today we had to get up the earliest of any day so far, but that’s okay
because breakfast was served and we were getting ready to go snow cat
riding. At Mt. Potts you don’t
take a lift to the slopes or even use one once you’re up there. You
get a heli ride up to the hut on the mountain and then once up there
you ride a snow cat.
The first run was pretty good and they purposely made us go easy to
get warmed up. Then we did a hike up a little bit higher and that was
kind of scary because it was very steep. Gitti (a bronze medal winner
from the Nagano games in our group) gave me some advice on turns and
from then on I was doing it just fine (well, better). The snow wasn’t
super powder, but it was nice. The coolest part was when the sun was
behind you and you could see your own shadow and the snow was shooting
up in a rooster tail behind you.
I took it pretty easy. I pushed myself a little, but not much (no
hikes up too far when the others did) because I still had one more day
of riding to go. The day was the biggest confidence builder I’ve had
so far. We got eleven runs in before the snow cat decided to get
fussy about the fuel filter and it was time to heli back down. Chris
got hurt on the run right before lunch and blew out his knee on a
steep. He’s a good skier and I’m sorry to see him get hurt, but at
least it was towards the end of the trip.
As for Mt. Potts, I’ll come back here again when I come to New Zealand
to snowboard, but I’ll just have to remember that the accommodations
are a bit more basic than other places. That’s okay though, the food,
free pool table, and bar make up for it.
