Euwbudi

CP styling in January

Ski traverse of the Southern Alps, New Zealand

Now here is an epic winter adventure - the length of the Southern Alps by skis. Wowa go Eric

The Mounatin Scene reports

A QUEENSTOWN adventurer has become the first person to ski the length of the Southern Alps.

Erik Bradshaw, 43, skied 800km along the spine of South Island from St Arnaud, Nelson Lakes, to Fiordland.

The arduous journey took the businessman almost three months.

“Without doubt this is the hardest thing I have ever done,” Bradshaw says.

“Sometimes it was miserable; in a small tent coated in ice being flattened by a storm and knowing you’re a long way from home.

“But other times it was breathtakingly beautiful with towering snow-capped mountains, blue skies and amazing snow.”

Bradshaw survived skiing and climbing for 12 hours a day and camping in sub-zero temperatures at night.

This is only the second winter traverse of the Southern Alps, after Graeme Dingle and Jill Tremain in 1971. It is the first time on skis.

To complete the journey, Bradshaw had to make the best use of his Kiwi ingenuity – inventing new ski equipment.

This included a unique exoskeleton binding of carbon fibre and Titanium that fitted over a normal walking boot to transform it into a ski
boot with crampons.

Read the full story at the Mountain Scene .....

Standing outside .. as you would

Standing outside .. as you would at way past 10 in the evening ... contemplating the last front to go through figuring well that's worth 4 or 5 cm and its now cold and clear ... when a far off whirring gathers pace and the peak made powder machines pour in to action

Check the lights

You got your first tracks ?

All the lights on

Oh we are loving that. All the lights on. Which means all the machines pumping. Which means maybe in the next few weeks we might get to slide around on some man made.

Chances of that ? My pick minimal.

Truth is I have almost got over the fact that mother nature has decided to delay our snow season this year. So that's OK. I'll get on with other stuff.

All i ask is that when she does decide to get cold and dump snow that she gets really mad ... and does it hard ... even if its in August. Or September. I don't mind I'm not going anywhere.

Don't bloody larf we need it !

Doesn't look like much but peer in to the darkness and you will see the lights of snow makers on. Which means they are making it.

Don't bloody larf. We need it. We are desperate.

Pumping the white stuff.

The big guns are pumping that white stuff. Go Hamish go.

skiing in june ?

"Snow-making could be in full swing in Queenstown this weekend, according to local weatherman David Crow.

Mr Crow said the temperature was expected to drop, allowing Coronet Peak to get its machines working."

so we might be skiing in June after all.....

They're skiing in Oz, but there's no snow at home

Go on then! Rub our noses in it !

"Snowstorms and cold snaps allowed several New South Wales and Victoria slopes to open as early as May 20, with the added assistance of artificial snow.

While the snow bases at those resorts were small - 20-50cm - and changeable, the early snowfall has given Australian operators hope of a bumper season.

Some New South Wales skifields did not see natural snow until August 6 last year.

New Zealand operators, on the other hand, are yet to get the snowfalls needed to kickstart their seasons. "

Full article in the NZ Herald here....