The New Zealand Ski Adventure – Part 1

Packing, preparing, some nice skiing and waiting for weather windows.

After years of dreaming I finally made it to New Zealand! With very little computer time I’m going to keep it short, but I promised family and friends I’d post photos, so the bigger stories and reflections will come later.

Following arrival in Christchurch and met up with my good friend Magnus Kastengren at the airport. It’s great to be back on the road with him, as we haven’t matched plans since our very enjoyable Denali trip a few years back.

We got our stuff sorted, did some shopping, said hello to friends in town, stayed one night (huge thanks Emma! ☺) and then turned our old rental car towards Mt Cook village (where we also teamed up with Stefan Sporli, a good kiwi friend living in Cham). Our goal was to make use of the short weather window of the weekend for some ski mountaineering on the main mountains, but gale force winds turned against us and instead we did a one-day push on the Footstool above the village.

It was a nice, easy and enjoyable day out with some amazing corn skiing. Then we sat down again, tried to analyze the treacherous weather forecasts and decided to go south. That’s where we are now, on an old nudist camp ground with our tent pitched next to Stefan’s trailer.

Hopefully the weather will give us just half a day of clearing so we can do something classic around Wanaka. It’s living the life though… Being back in the car, living the gipsy life with good friends and just following the weather cycles and our own motivation. Hopefully we’ll also get some nice mountains climbed and skied along the way.

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