Archive for September, 2009
Victor of the World Heli Challenge
Posted by finch | Filed under Uncategorized
Toast
wind lip
The Final day of the World Heli Challenge was truly blessed again. Perfect blue skies and a long steep mountain with more to offer then speed. Due to some ice left over from all the wind, event organizer Harro wanted to wait and let things soften up a little. I didn’t hear any complaints from competitors on that decision. We did get to make one course inspection while we waited. That is when I spotted the big roller at the bottom, which is where you would be carrying your most speed and would be the best opportunity for some big crashes.
Once the time came, things ran very quickly. Snowboarders were last to go. I had a camera strapped to my leg that I turned on right before I got to the start line. I strapped in and caught up in the moment, I completely forgot to start the camera. Bang! The gun went off and we pointed towards the first big rollover for the holeshot. I was 4th off the line, but drafted right behind the fast guy. The drawback to drafting was the ice-cookies that were getting kicked up off the tail of the board. I heard a few competitors say they had fat lips from falling other guys. My technique paid off and put me in the lead over the first roller. It was then a tuck down the steep icy face. Right before the roller I opened up to play it safe and being back to back with Ralph, I watched Ralph pull away and right back into a tuck I went. I came across the finish line in second with a nice gap till the rest of the pack. The three 2nd places would give me the overall title of the World Heli Challenge. I was stoked.
After the adrenaline settled, a very nice wind lip caught everyone’s attention. With a perfect pow landing we lined up at the top of the cornis to hit this natural feature. Instantly skiers were trying double backs, so I figured it was time I tried one again. Dang that was fun! I have never seen so many double backs and girls going for single backs. Don’t forget about Mike Wilson, fool is crazy! He went for the triple back! Probably would have landed if he didn’t go so far and land flat, but that’s his style.
We kept hearing about a big surprise and as if a bunch of well experienced heli pilots going nuts and scaring a bunch of adrenaline junky world class athletes wasn’t enough, they dropped us off on a river and jet boated us back to the heli pad. Whoaa nelly! Before I even got in a boat I witnessed a jet boat run up on land accidently and all the passengers had to get out and push it back in. Definitely had a good laugh over that one. I was amazed at how shallow of water those boats can go in. No joke, about an inch of water was all they needed. Look for my videos.
The good laughs were far from over. After getting out of the boat we had a short walk back to the Heli Pad. But unsure which way to go we ended up in a marsh. With no visual way around, we went straight through and some of the crew found themselves knee deep in muddy water. Janina, the woman skier champ, tried to run trough, but her body got in front of her feet. She found herself laying in the muddy water while her ski boots drank the water. Once we were all a bit wet we just had to jump a fence, walk through a field where I stepped in dung, which brought us to another fence, but this one looked electric. Tim, skier dude, claimed the fence was off, so he grabbed it with his hand. Yup, it was on. I went with the leg over leap approach. Ingrid Backstrom went for the slow climb over, “I don’t believe it’s on Tim”, approach. Half way over she found herself getting shocked and didn’t make it over. We laughed so hard! Poor girl, that was her second time this week getting shocked. All in all there was an incredible vibe in the air of pure stoke!
Andy
top of race course
World Heli Challenge!!!
Posted by finch | Filed under Uncategorized
I just finished what I must say is my best day snowboarding ever! I am going to have to go ahead and make that official. Why you may ask? Today I rode Mount Albert, which is a crazy steep peak with big gnarly spires all over it. Very pleasing to the eye, but from the top it looks wild! After sitting out 10 days of rain, wind and just some crazy stormy conditions we finally have perfectly clear conditions. Mt. Albert collected all the snow and none of the wind amazingly. These rock cliffs and spires had snow stuck to them so they were actually rideable. Yes, it was deep and it was steep! Cheesy, but no better way to explain it. I was completely lost for words after my run and had no clue how to express my self or harness what had just happened. It was impossible to take a bad line! You could put your self in the gnarliest exposure and didn’t have to worry. Because it was so steep, when you edge into a spine you would find yourself flying 30 to 40 feet before catching another soft pillow.
Now for some details. This was the second day of the World Heli Challenge in New Zealand. First day was a free-ride day very similar to the natural selection. We had one run to build a couple features then two more to throw down our best tricks. I must say it was very confusing trying to pick a line that would flow and then figure out what tricks to do. That first day was hard icy crust layers all over with some fun powder pockets. Most of us tried to land in the pow except for Mike Wilson who threw a double back off this icy knuckle down 80 feet to ice. Ouch! There are 40 contestants and we pretty much track the heck out of the runs, but today after two runs, there were still plenty of sick lines untracked. Going over on our heli budget Harro the event organizer made the call we had to do a second run because of how good the conditions were. This much snow normally would be very high avalanche danger, but this snow stuck to everything helping to make it the perfect day!
Tomorrow is the Last day of the Heli Challenge. I placed second both days and am currently tied with Quintin Robins for 1st. This last day will determine who wins the event. The last venue is a Chinese downhill. Start at the top and first one to the bottom wins. Stay tuned for final results!
