I bet it was advertised here a bit so you might of already known about it, I got an email asking if Id like to add anything to the auction that Radio NZ was putting on for the Christchurch Appeal.

Radio Sport has spent the past three weeks raising funds for victims of the Christchurch earthquake. Many New Zealand sports stars, organisations and fans generously donated items to be auctioned off.

I was one of them and donated a day of coaching with me for a lucky someone (and friend) at Cardrona Ski Resort. Cardrona, the nice Mountain that they are, threw in Day passes for both and lunch at the Mez Cafe.

So stoked to help out the chch peps, someone brought my donated ‘day of shred’ and it all contributed to raising over $330,000 for the red cross appeal. Yay go NZ.

Thanks Cardrona for helping me help the cause

Last weekend I ventured back down to Orakei Korako for the second WNZ coaching weekend. Unfortunately the weather was much less than ideal for wakeboarding.

The first day was absolutely pissing down with rain but we managed to get the kids motivated and got out there anyway. They all got to have a nice long ride in between downpours and we made the most of a crappy day… definitely character building riding conditions and the type of weather that makes them appreciate the better weather.

Day two was a little better with much less rain and more riding. Sophie Schollum was getting painfully close to landing her first ever wake to wake 360 after hitting a couple of them 1 wake.

Regan stomped all of his big tricks and was riding with some great style, he tried a scarecrow for the first time and got really close but unfortunately he caught a solid front edge which ended his riding for the weekend with a minor back injury.

Francesco managed to overcome a mental block on his toeside and was busting big toeside wake to wake jumps along with some solid heelside grabs.

Morgan Haakma was stepping up her game riding a longer rope and was getting much better height on all of her jumps and her older brother Bradley Haakma managed to stick a sick line of tricks that went. Frontroll, heelside 360, another frontroll, heelside backroll and a scarecrow.

Im looking forward to seeing all of my students ride this weekend at the NZ Wakeboarding Nationals at Orakei Korako. Make sure you get along on Saturday for the finals.

Thanks again to Ballistics for the use of the camp and to Bruce Schollum for helping to arrange the camp along with the use of his boat.

Okay maybe not blood and guts… Just some blood!

We had set out for a intended five day back country camping trip with the Sentury team in Tahoe and the weather was looking to be awesome!

It had just been dumping trillions (wow, when was the last time you used the word trillion?haha) of inches of snow and the forecast was now just for sunshine…. Epic!!!

Checking the avalanche danger… I’m learning everything I can off these guys!

The jump we built…. so much funnnn!!! We session’d it all afternoon and got some awesome shots and video footage!

Some of the crew hanging out!

As it was my first day in the back country and first day trying to land tricks in powder I was still working out how to ride out. I landed a huge front 3 on my second hit and when I actually rode out I was so surprised!

Haha, but after stomping my front rodeo to bolts numerous times I couldn’t hold the run out for longer than 3-4meters especially switch, and then I would go arse over tea kettle rag dolling my way down …I was so close!

So I kept trying and on my last attempt I came off the lip wrong and couldn’t recover, text book belly flopped to the landing and scorpion’d so hard the heel edge of my (brand new, untuned) snowboard hit me in the back of the head… yes, my body bent in half the wrong way! I don’t know if being flexible was a good or a bad thing in this case??…

Thank god I had some panacode in my bag as since I was in shock I couldn’t feel it ‘too’ much so whipped a couple of those down my throat as all I knew was that I did not want to feel it when the adrenaline wore off!

It sucks in the states for getting pain killers right away because they don’t want a lawsuit against them if something goes wrong so you have to wait until you actually see a doctor and we all know how long that can sometimes take, especially when you are in pain!

So, it was self medicating time. I’m not going to go into detail on how the stapled my scalp back together while I was awake, all I’m saying is that is was one of the worst and most painful experiences of my life! Even with my own codeine!

As bummed as I am that my trip got cut short, I’m looking forward to going back to Colorado (home) and once I have had a couple of days rest get back into some spring park laps with friends!! Whoop!

So…. ever heard someone say ‘too much snow?’

It happened. Slopestyle for the Roxy Chicken Jam 2011 was officially cancelled, as mother nature just wasn’t cool with it. Instead, we had a ‘creative space’ video comp!

They supplied each group of three with two GoPro cameras and sent us on our merry way… the criteria: best air, jib and line inbounds on the ski resort plus other things like hug a skier, slash a friend etc… P.S. did i mention it was 200km winds?

Mountain shut at midday so we didn’t really get a chance to do the things we had in mind, but my god was it fun! Spent most of the day slashing and pranking people…. GTS!!! hahah.

This was the breakfast they served up each morning…bad arse!

Last night we went to the after party and saw ‘La Roux’ – so good! First night out in a while and this morning obviously I realised why I haven’t been out for a bit but, it was so good!

So now we are heading to Tahoe, not sure yet if I am going to stay there and film and do the Campus Rail Jam Tour stop in Reno or go back to Colorado for Ms. Superpark at Keystone…. either way, win win situation. Both would be awesome!

I finally made an edit too! This is from a weekend in Breck – check it!

Some say summer is coming to an end, but we don’t think so! To celebrate we are giving away an ‘Endless Mountain Dew Summer Pack’ that you can get your hands on!

The pack includes 3 month supply of Dew,  two Surf School Vouchers from New Zealand Surf and Snow Tours, a MD branded towel plus one for a Dew friend, a Mountain Dew mini chilly bag and surfing DVD’s plus other goodies.

To get in the draw, click here!

PS – don’t forget to become a fan of our mates at NZ Surf ‘n’ Snow Tours

Life for the next 7 days will consist of a couch, the internet and the Discovery Channel as I am heading to the surgical center to swallow some sleeping air.

So as finding footage and photos of skating that hasn’t been taking place goes, I’ve had to come up with new ways of doing my blogs…here’s a photo of the pup I looked after for the week and her climbing abilities.

Hopefully I won’t become bored enough to come up with many more blogs this unrelated to skateboarding, but we will see what it’s like being sentenced to a couch.

Happy weeks ending!

Arrived in Mammoth, California last night a 15hour drive from Breckenridge, we made it!! Aaaand we arrived to find a sh#t tone of snow! This is the house we are staying at….

Crazy!

Weather report is saying more snow through out the week… we had 2 foot today and they say another 2 foot tomorrow. The slopestyle contest may just turn into a rail jam at this rate (hah, suits me just fine!) as not the best news for getting speed for jumps, but excellent news for free riding!!! First things first though, we had registration at 8.30am….

Liz Hoagland, Jene Dietz and I getting in on the “athlete” registration… ohhh yeah.

And then, check out the V.I.P riders lounge they have for us!…

So.. as it was dumping out, naturally we went shredding. The course was open until lunch but considering the conditions all four jumps were closed and the rails were getting more and more buried by the second. So, free-riding it was!!

What a day… Over the last 4days it has snowed 9feet (and 24 inches in the last 24 hours…) and as the mountain was not in the least bit busy and was still snowing you couldn’t even say a quarter of the mountain was tracked out??!! By FAR the BEST snow conditions I have snowboarded in, EVER! Plus, we were rolling in a 7 girl deep posse plus our own personal tour guide -Thanks Phil! (A local mammothite who we are stayn with). Also, somehow I got convinced to drop my first 25foot cliff drop! After Arielle and Phill made it look too easy… So sick! =)

This shot is by far my favourite…. that is a house completely covered in snow and the only way in and out is through that wee tunnel! Think about how much money you would save on heating?! Haha. New age igloo!

For now, we are just resting up, Facebooking you know, the usual…  Qualifiers tomorrow bright and early… wish us luck!! =)

So each year one of my favourite comps rolls around in March. The US Open is always in Stratton Vermont and its such a cool and different state I love to visit.

This year was a little different, the weather was crazy. The first day we were there an ice storm rolled in. It was like someone put a hose on all the trees and wet them, then in the same instant the water then froze. It was crazy.

crazy ice trees

This lasted for days before it all melted. When riding it looked so pretty to be looking down on the sparkling ice trees. Was cool but crazy.

The course wasn’t affected too much by the weather, it was icy but no more than usual. We had a few days of practice before semis, I had  landed a run which I though was enough to get me though. Unfortunately I was on the bubble, but ended up getting bumped out of the final 6. So ended up in 7th place after my runs, disappointed was an understatement!

To cheer me up Kelly Clark invited a few of us Burton girls to her family restaurant for dinner one night. It was so cool, its like a little museum of all Kelly’s trophy’s, medals and anything shes collected along her career (which is a lot by the way).

Trophy case bursting at the seams

Gold medal no big deal

Kelly’s parents place is called TC’s which is in a town called Dover Vermont, close to Stratton. Its awesome and cute, and a must see if your in the area, I recommend it for sure. Vermonters are super proud of Kelly and as well they should be, was awesome to see her archive of winnings. Thanks Kel

Ok well back to the comp, day of finals, Enni won, stoked for her but in all honesty I was still gutted about not being there myself. So, what I did to get my mind off it was… PARTY!!! That night there was a riders party. It was fun and the kiwi crew were there to get busy.

Ok well thats update from the Open, a little differnt from others, but this time this comp was a little different. After the whole Burton Open Series I ended up with a overall ranking of 4th, just missed the cut. Oh well next time huh

http://www.opensnowboarding.com/standings.aspx

Okey dokey off home now, be good see ya in NZ!!!!!! yay