Ohau rad the corn at Ohau, NZ – 09/11/06

Date: September 11th, 2006

Location: Ohau, New Zealand (between Wanaka and Christchurch)

Skiers: 666, Mrs. 666., Slim, and Squirrel99.

Synopsis: Still on the spring skiing schedule, we decided to ride Ohau for an afternoon. Its also the furthest ski field in which you can do a day trip from Queenstown. Coming in at about 2.5 hours, a quick stop to Starbucks for an American sized brewed coffee is a must. After about 2 hours of electro and dubstep, we finally met Slim and SQ99 at the turn off to the ski field. We arrive at 12:30 pm to find around 10 other soldiers attacking the mountain.

If there is a place that is the exact opposite of Aspen, this is it. Lift runs on diesel, a base building the size of a tiny flat in NYC, the bathrooms are dead-locked at 4:00pm on the nose, but they do take Visa! Remember, this is not a clubfield, you actually ride a chairlift. However, as you will see, the views are absolutely stunning, and the potential of this place is off the charts. And one more thing, be prepared to walk.

To sum it all up, we took a few long hikes and skied a couple of the sweetest, greatest, and most fun corn runs of our lives.

Music: Calibre – ‘Mr. Right On’

You can see the access road on the right…

Lake Ohau and gnartains come into view, but so does Slim’s rental wagon…

Always a good sign on the way to go skiing…

Slim was laying burnouts on the "just-wide-enough" road…

Ah, Ohau’s "chairlift" comes in to view…

Slim on thee stated lift mechanism…SQ99 was in the shitter and told us to "TAKE A LAP!!!""

But he missed out on this well manicured groomer…

Once off the lift, you can boot up to the ridge and then traverse to the gems of this place…

SQ99 in the lead on all the hikes…

And here’s what lies right behind the ridge…Trackhead’s up there somewhere…

You even get a nice view of Mt. Cook…Iskibc nearing the summit…

Slim pondering whether he should propose to SQ99…

And here’s a nice little untracked and gorgeous shot of SQ99..

And another but during a solar flare….

Cue Marv Albert….

666 and SQ99 hiking the endless ridge…

As you reach the summit, another bowl behind awaits you. We didn’t have the time to get back there, but if we did, we may have.

The "Silver Chesak" line is in there somewhere…

You can ski right back down to the access road…

While up there, I ran into old JC, the carpenter…

Mrs. 666 slays some shiny corn. I mean, c’mon, doesn’t that look good?

It was PERFECT! Not sticky, carveable bliss!

666 tries for a photogenic shot, but SQ99’s camera skills are too advanced..

Slim rails in for a face-shot….

CAN YOU SEE THE TRENCHES THAT HE LEFT BEHIND? God it was good.

SQ99 making good use of his new HH coat…

Slim – having fun…

Slim in a solitary moment on the traverse…

SQ99 acting as if he’s at NASTAR…

The Mars Rover landed here a couple years back…

Up for another mate?

This view is just dumb….

666 gets into the action, and MAKES A TURN!!!!

And then another…god damn that snow was good!

I FOUND THE MOTHER F-IN RING!!!!!!!!!!!

Meanwhile SQ99 goes "1st person" on us…

…so he can descend down this BAD ASS CHUTE!!!

…which rolled into some of the best turns of my life!

Yeah Squirrel!

Completely untracked you bastard!

Ok, so these pics of Slim should piss you off while at work today…

If there was a heaven…

…it may have been at Ohau on this day!

And then the Mrs. gets into the game…

…yeah, I am still standing on that rock,

And yeah, that means I’m going last…

666 makes a slow turn…

Mrs. 666 on the lower section…

Slim makes the most out of the sunny side…

And does the same in the shade…

OMG! Its Slim Shady! Get it?

And SQ99 gets a pic of these guys pointing at our tracks…Ahhhh, the rewards for a few uphill steps.

On the last run, we ran across some scree to hit some epic concrete chunks!

Yeah, it was Slim’s idea. He was convinced it was going to be soft. It was agreed that it would go down as one of the worst runs of our lives. I guess it pays to play in the sun in the spring, aye?