Snow (well sort of)
You're not going to believe it. 30cms of snow fell in 24 hours?!?! That's about 12 inches for the people on the old-school measurement system ;)
Even still, that meant I could almost say there was powder to board on. You can guess that half of New Zealand was out boarding and skiing yesterday due to this fact meaning that the solitary two chair-lifts had monster queues (20 minutes of queuing at the bottom!). Crazy stuff, hopefully it doesn't happen any more in my final two weeks in NZ.
I suppose I could describe the snow as 'chunky'. With a layer of crusty, ice on top, it was like riding across a frozen lake where every once in a while, your board disappears through the layer (highly unexpected I might add) into this icy layer of powder. There was definitely powder in there, but I wish my board had some suspension as it was seriously tough going on the knees. Of course as the day went on and people crashed their way down the mountain (litterally), it was all to everyone's benefit as it actually chewed up the icy blocks into more friendly snow. Oh how it teased of my old memories of floating on snow (like in SLC Utah, Andorra and the Three Valleys of France).
Amazingly, we heard from a local that this would probably be the best day of the year here!?? As a HAP put it so well, NZ must have one very good marketing team if this is what they call good snow! It's more a case of they've got some amazing powder skiing, but you need a helicopter to get there and at 600 Euro per day (per person) I can't really afford that :)
With a dead arm after a vaccination today, I'm missing out the 2nd day of the good 'powder' but I'm hoping they leave some for me tomorrow ;)
Even still, that meant I could almost say there was powder to board on. You can guess that half of New Zealand was out boarding and skiing yesterday due to this fact meaning that the solitary two chair-lifts had monster queues (20 minutes of queuing at the bottom!). Crazy stuff, hopefully it doesn't happen any more in my final two weeks in NZ.
I suppose I could describe the snow as 'chunky'. With a layer of crusty, ice on top, it was like riding across a frozen lake where every once in a while, your board disappears through the layer (highly unexpected I might add) into this icy layer of powder. There was definitely powder in there, but I wish my board had some suspension as it was seriously tough going on the knees. Of course as the day went on and people crashed their way down the mountain (litterally), it was all to everyone's benefit as it actually chewed up the icy blocks into more friendly snow. Oh how it teased of my old memories of floating on snow (like in SLC Utah, Andorra and the Three Valleys of France).
Amazingly, we heard from a local that this would probably be the best day of the year here!?? As a HAP put it so well, NZ must have one very good marketing team if this is what they call good snow! It's more a case of they've got some amazing powder skiing, but you need a helicopter to get there and at 600 Euro per day (per person) I can't really afford that :)
With a dead arm after a vaccination today, I'm missing out the 2nd day of the good 'powder' but I'm hoping they leave some for me tomorrow ;)
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