Back on skis

It's good to be back on skis! I've been stuck in Australia getting an injury figured out, but that's finally sorted so I've put some extra-large kneepads on and hit Watson's Crags here in Australia to test everything out. So far so good! I'll be up again later in the week to see if anything in the backcountry is in good condition. Last time I was up Mt Carruthers looked perfect, so hopefully it hasn't turned into a wall of solid ice.

I also head to New Zealand on Saturday. It sounds like there's a bit of snow falling (finally) in the Craigieburns. Temple Basin has just opened, and Broken River is hoping to spin their tows after this storm clears out. Fingers crossed that it doesn't come down as rain. Plus it sounds like the glaciers have been getting plenty of snow during the winter, so I'm heading up next week to climb some peaks and earn some (hopefully steep) turns.

We're expecting to expand the website and launch our 2015 Japan trips soon. Stay tuned.

On the ground

Wow! I'm in Japan. I think I'll be kicked out of this library soon, so I'll keep this short.

So far I've had a quick look at Teine Highlands near Sapporo and I'm right near Niseko tonight so I'll head there tomorrow. Teine is pretty cool. Most of the upper part of the mountain was closed due to high wind and low viz, but it's got a bunch of steep terrain and some fun-looking trees. I'm taking things very easy at the moment to recover from an injury, so I didn't try anything too spectacular. It will be great to head back there in a few days with some of the guys from the trial trip and see what the rest of the hill is like.

More updates are to come. You can follow some of the (terrible) pics I'm taking on instagram: @thepowderproject

Two Weeks...

Woah! I fly to Sapporo in two weeks! I'm psyched about getting back to winter and nervously excited about getting started with all the business stuff. There's heaps to do: Vehicles to buy, accommodation to organise, insurance to demystify, powder to ski. Also, new Kingswoods. Woop! It sounds like the season there is suitably epic so I'm looking forward to booting up and getting amongst it.

 

Broken River 2013

The snow last season was pretty grim, but it’s comforting to know that even in a bad season you can always find a few good turns. A lot of the lines I wanted to ski from last season never really came into condition, but I ended up skiing a bunch of new chutes in the Avalanche Gulch just outside the ski area boundary. It turns out that a rocky face overlooking the gully that I always assumed would be pretty much impassable is actually very skiable and it held good snow for most of the winter. I went out there on a small powder day to test the GoPro and got a few good laps in. The best powder was low in the valley but there wasn’t such a great base down there so I was pretty tentative in some of the more committing sections, but there was some great skiing to be had.

This is the first video I’ve ever made and edited so it’s a bit strange but hopefully you get a sense of some of the lines that are out there in New Zealand, just waiting for first tracks.

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