Freshies for the first time!

Sunday 11th of October

There's been quite a bit of new snow up the Mountain over the week. Sunday and Monday it dumped big time and we caught it in Raetahi with 10cm falling there in a very short time. Wednesday was epic but the weekend weather was marginal with Sunday a possibility.

I headed up to Raetahi on Saturday after, solo for the first time and met Adrian at the camping ground. The Mountain was closed with gale force winds forecast for Sunday :(

8.15 and we rolled into the top carpark as another snow shower drifted across the Mountain. The amount of new snow on the access road was amazing and Turoa looked a picture with a lot more snow coverage than last weekend. But man was it chilly and the wind was blowing. But you could see blue sky approaching as we headed for the Movenpick Chair.

By the time we reached the top of the Movenpick the sun was shining and the wind had dropped.

I bid farewell to Adrian who was off to the advance runs and I headed 'round the High Noon and down the Boneyard. Then back up the Giant chair for several runs down the yahoo. I did find this trail a little hardpacked so I was cautious at the top but midway down found some nice soft snow on the left side to practise my carving. After 4 or so runs I headed back to the base to shed some of my cloths as it was heating up big time. Then back up the Movenpick, Boneyard run onto the Giant. And amazingly I shared a chair with Chantel Smith who I had never met but had talked to via the snow forum and facebook. She suggested we do a couple of runs down the Why Not together and this is when my whole day ... and possibly whole boarding experience changed. She told me to follow her and I explained that she may have to wait a little bit as I was kinda slow. But as soon as I hit my first turn it was powder city!!! This enabled me to string my carving together inturn allowing me to increase my speed. Never once did Chantel get more than 30 or 40 metres ahead of me and by our third run I was confident enough to go faster than I ever had before.

After 3 runs down the Why Not I bid farewell to CS and sat down to send a couple of txts. I then hit the Why Nots for another 3 runs and it was awesome. My final run of the day was shared with Adrian and I was blasting down the hill. He admitted I was ripping (for a newb) and I left the Mountain with a huge grin and alot more skills than I had started with.

This was by far and away the best day I had had on the Mountain since my first introduction in early August. I can now get down the hill as fast as the medium paced traffic and carve easily from left to right. No longer to I have to think about the process required to turn onto my toe edge is just a matter of rotating my shoulders and looking where I want to go. A true water shed day!