A secret hike up on the hotel face in brevent away from the hustle and bustle!
Had a nice pow day shooting with Gus Hurst in Courmayeur. Loads of pillows and pow slashing! courmayeur turned out to be one of the best places for powder in europe over the winter. I would love to spend more time skiing here in the future, loads of untouched zones.
I road triped it over with the usual kiwi's and norwege's, vivian and anne-may, to nendaz for one of the main comps of the season. The qualifier was split into 3 runs of which you chose two to ski. Face 3 was my favourite. I skied an interesting line with a big drop but unfortunately got sluffed out on my way towards a second drop. The competition was pushed for time and at the top of face 2, my second run, I was told they had no time for me and they made us ski face 1 which myself and the other riders riding last that day had never looked at before. Normally there is a lot of preparation before your run so that was realy dissapointing. Hopefully next year they will have improved the format of the qualifier.
It was a bit of a mission getting Vivian up for first lift for her final heats due to a couple of difficult parking attendants that proved to be difficult towards certain few non-fluent French speaking competitors but we tried. Once up there the finals went of with a bang with 15+ riders including big tricks in their run. There was a huge super man front, several back flips and a few 360's. The level was so high that it seemed just as good as the world tour standard if not better! Vivian won the girls boarding and got her wild card for the Verbier Extreme.
The after party in Nendaz was pretty mental involving the kiwi's, norwegian's, myself, a pole dancing pole and everyone else! Card drinking games were played and myself and charlotte, one of the norwege's had a bounce off jumping on all possible obstacles during the night, haha.
From nendaz there was a long drive towards Bratislava, Slovakia. With a brief pit stop over night in innsbruck the three cars charged towards Jasne. There was team kiwi car with Pete, Neil and Mark, my car with Ed Waite and Dion Newport's rental with Hannah Fischer. The drive had worn us out with 17+ hours on the road and was glad that the first day of competition was postponned till the following day as i was feeling a bit under the weather. I was still up the mtn with the guys and we found loads of pillows in the trees to bounce around off and spin or flip off. I had a good old long rest before the start of the following day. It ended up being a one day event due to timing of the contest and the weather. Unfortunately hannah who had tripped it over with us was helicoptered to hospital due to breaking her upper leg whilst doing a drop. She took off and clipped a rock mid-air. We could hear the shouts of pain across from the face and due to logistics there was a big delay with the heli taking over an hour to arrive. Everyone from the crew hopes she has a quick recovery. We all got to do our runs later on but with such an upset and nothing significantly impressive to report on from the crew, we got on the beers.
Another crazy afterparty was upon us headed up by the 1euro beers. this time the kiwi car was pushed down the stairs outside the bar by a group of Frenchies. It wouldn't have been so funny if the car had got broken or damaged! Local slovakian girl mimi was there to join in with the fun!!! 
I stopped off for another long stop over in mayrhofen to see the boys. Was good to catch up with Joe and Nick Harkess and Jt. Went for a little adventure up into the woods and skied the park for a few of the days. It was the first time i had properly hit up the park all season which is unusual for me. It was good to get back into it! I skied a few days with nick and my friend lorne who owns boax headwear and is from glasgow. The snow over in the zillertal still wasn't so great. Again, 'next time' to the zillertal!
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