Back To The Real World.

Yep, after a long winter spent between Mount Buller, Jindabyne and New Zealand I am home and straight back on the tools. I flew in from NZ about two weeks ago and the very next day I was on the job site to resume my apprenticeship.

Not much interesting has occured in these past two weeks. Aside from work I have been trying to catch up with as many freinds as possible and managed to sneak up to Buller this weekend for one last shred and to watch the AFL final [and celebrate the result] with some good freinds [even though none of us support either side].

In the next few months before I return to the winter world [The Northern Winter] there will be very little on the snowboarding front to report. Never fear as I will continue to post about anything eventful or interesting that you [my loyal readers, whom I am almost certain consist only of my Mum] may find interesting. So I thought I might start now by posting my snowboarding playlist from this season.

I am pretty passionate about music. That said I am not musical at all. However one of my favourite things to do is trade music with freinds and maybe share or stumble across something new and exciting. So I hope that using this forum you might find something you like. These are some of my favourite songs from the past few months including some new tracks along with some old favourites.

-Under the Sheets - Chiddy Bang
All of you have probably heard of these guys buy now, they are amazing! This is off their Air Swell Mixtape and samples Ellie Goulding's song by the same name [love her voice].
-Crave You - Flight Facilities feat. Gizelle
This is an incredible song from a few months back. When Nate first heard it in NZ it was on repeat for weeks and weeks.
-Daylight [Ninjasonik Remix] - Matt & Kim
Got to love good hip hop remixes of already great songs.



-Work - Gang Starr
This song inspires me, and it just so happens to be one of the best hip hop beats in history. The MC of Gang Starr died earlier this year. R.I.P. Guru
-Evil Woman [feat ELO] - Hoodie Allen w/ Mike Posner
This is such a cool song, I think it helps that it samples ELO.
-Cudder Is Back - Kid Cudi feat. Vampire Weekend
Two of my favourite artists Kid Cudi and Vampire Weekend. It can't get much better.
-I Need A Dollar - Aloe Blacc
How To Make It In America is one of my favourite TV shows at the moment, and this is the theme song which happens to be pretty incredible.



-Heard It Through The Grapevine [Xaphoon Jones Remix] - Marvin Gaye
Xaphoon Jones is the A.K.A. of Noah, the producer from Chiddy Bang. Xaphoon does really epic remixes and mash ups, this is one of my favourites.
-Worse it Gets [RAC Mix] - Penguin Prison
For some reason I feel this would be a good summer roadtrip song, will have to wait and see.
-Who Do You Love - Museum of Bellas Artes
The sounds that make up this song are odd, but somehow work... its just a simple and fun track.

If you have'nt worked it out already you can click on the titles to listen to/view the songs on YouTube. Enjoy! If I get good feedback, who knows, maybe I might post again when I get some new tunes I'm excited about.

JW

SoO

Vote Team Victoria in the Shred of Origin!



I suppose I should be diplomatic so here is the Team NSW edit too.



Click Here To Vote

Secret Sessions...

Cardrona has been completely closed for the past two days now due to some maintenance issues. However yesterday we heard some whispers on the streets of Wanaka that some kiwi's had a private traning session in the Cardrona pipe and they might be doing the same today. So our coach made some calls to see if it was on for today, and to get us in on the action...

We were pretty lucky to ride the pipe today. As I mentioned the Cardies was closed to the public and The mountain was pretty much desserted. The only other people we were sharing the pipe with were: a small group of Kiwis; Byron Wells + Simon Dumont; and some North Face skiers + snowboarder [Kaitlyn Farrington] doing a photo shoot. We had to wait for a little while before getting into the pipe because The North Face crew were shooting with a heli, but it was'nt all that bad just kicking back and watching the chopper.


It was a fun day. The sun was shining, there was a good vibe and the pipe was still in pretty good knick when despite the fact that it had'nt been cut and there were some pretty cool tricks being thrown down by all.

Check out Sam's post on today by clicking here.
JW

New Zealand is Closed

There are gale force winds charging through that have caused Snow Park, Cardrona, Treble Cone, The Remarkables, Coronet Peak and I'm sure a few other mountains are completelly closed... this weather in NZ is getting pretty, pretty annoying.

Earthquake!!!

This morning at about 5am I woke to my bed wobbling, the hanging light swinging and the walls swaying. I though I must've just been having a dream, but then I realized Nate was awake to and he confirmed that I wasn't crazy and it definatley felt like the house was about to fall over. The tremers continued for a few miutes and I was pretty quick to fall back asleep. [I stole this photo from the internet]


When I eventually got out of bed, I mentioned it to the boys, who slept through it and attributed these happenings to a ghost, and our Coach, Benny, who said he felt it also... we joked that it was an earthquake, but sure enough when we flicked over to the News channel we found out that a 7.4 magnitude earthquake hit about 30 clicks out of Christchurch [I should mention that we are about a 6 hour drive from Christchurch]. Check out this video of the damage.



JW

Cardies Closure

Today I woke up, rolled over, grabbed my laptop and checked the web report for Cardrona. This is what I saw.


It's easy to see why when you look at this webcam of the halfpipe.


I promise you that is the halfpipe.

Based on this intel we pretty much wrote the day off, the boys had a sleep in and I watched a doco on submarines... but then we got a call from Coach saying that snowpark was sunny. Initially I thought it was a joke but when I looked on the webcam I could'nt beleive my eyes, it was sunny. We ended up going to Snow Park even if it was just to get out of the house but it turned out to be a pretty fun day. We shredded the jib line [the fresh snow and strong winds did'nt allow us to ride anthing else] but that was ok with me as I can honestly say I cannot remember the last time I spent a day hitting nothing but rails and boxes.

Fingers crossed the weather clears up soon.
JKW

SoO AirTime

SoO AirTime is video based freeride competition for the Aussie snowfields. It has two components... the Open Edit which is open to everyone, and the Shred of Origin [SoO] which pits the best Victorians and New South Walshmen/Women against each other [For more intel head here].


Any how it is all going on at the moment with the Open Edit videos up and ready for voting, and the SoO kicking off at Mount Buller.
These videos are from the first twos days of the SoO.





So get amongst it. Visit www.sooairtime.com. Watch and vote!

JW

One Sunny Day

We have not had the best of luck in terms of weather lately and it does not seem to be getting all that much better any time soon. There was a small window [two days] in which the weather was good to ride. The first was on tuesday when we could'nt see Cardrona so rode Snow Park instead [Sam posted about Tuesday here]; and yesterday which was a perfect blue bird day. We took advantage of the beautiful day by riding pipe all morning and in the afternoon hiking out to get a few lines in one of the back bowls at Cardrona. The snow was'nt incredible out the back, but it was alot better than riding shredded up groomers or sitting on the couch.


I will post more from yesterday afternoon soon!
JW