Winter fun in Canterbury - 2 m snow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

When most of the country has been complaining about bad weather: rain, storms, floodings and cold southerlies, I have been extremely happy. The snow in the hills has never been this good over the six years I have been here!! Canterbury has been lucky to get the best snow layer in New Zealand and we have so far managed to have about 6 days in the snow.


Mt Hutt has over 2.5 m of nice snow and apparently don't want any more. Christchurch is a brilliant spot to be in, since we can access about 10 different ski fields within a 2 hr drive.

Canterbury had a bad southerly passing through a few weeks ago and Charlie and I took the following day off work. This was the first day trialling out the snow chains on the van so it took a bit of time to get them on and off and on again to finally reach Mt Cheeseman. Road leading up to Mt Cheeseman ski field: I thought we wouldn't make it up to the field as the wheels were not gripping at on occasion and our gutless van was almost standing still. We made it at last and a bunch of keas (curious mountain parrots)greeted us.
KJ - enjoying the snow!!
VV- loving it! Julian have kindly passed on his snowboard to me. It is a great toy in the new powder. I promise to make the most of it Julian. :-)
The view from Mt Hutt when we took an avalanche training course. It was a glorious day, but instead of skiing, we mostly spent time digging pits checking snow profiles, testing transceivers and probes and digging out our instructor from the snow. The course was just an intro to what you need to learn more about before you head out skiing in the back country. It made me realised how much there is to learn. I thought I knew a lot about snow being from Sweden :-)
Check out the rime crust in the back ground and the severe wind drift and sharp cornices...

Mr Plank joined us last week in Broken River where R&R sports organised a telemark weekend. It was a great chance to get some useful pointers since this was my 5th day on the telemark skis and I had got into some bad habits. Here is a short snippet of my telemark skills.

We stayed the night in one of the Broken River hut and it was so nice to not have to drive home to Chch after a day of skiing. We stuffed our faces with nice food and had a 10 hr sleep.

Mike, the giant and the Charlie, the hut gnome. The sunday offered gorgeous weather. While I was polishing my telemark technique, Charlie and Mike skinned their way over Hamilton Peak to Craigeburn Skifield in the search for more fresh powder.

The view towards a snow dusted Flock hill, where 'the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe' was shot.My poor body was severely battered after two days of skiing. Broken River only has rope tows, which are is a pretty primal sytem for pulling skiers uphill. In its most basic form, it consists of a long rope loop running through a pulley at the bottom and one at the top, powered by an engine at one end. Passengers grab hold of the rope and are pulled along while standing on their skis or snowboards and sliding up the hill. It is very imprtant to keep hands and body parts away from the rope, as I noticed. In a moment when I wasn't focusing I banged by leg into the pully and managed to get a massive deep bruise. I had a smimilar experience a few years ago as well when my underarm at the end of the day had all the colours of the rainbow.

Once you get tha hang of the tow, it is a very efficient way of getting up the hill fast.

Another weekend is coming up soon and we are hoping to go up to Craigeburn to try out the new powder. Apparently some fields have about 50 cm of fresh whiteness. Life is good!!!