Ski goddess gets her legs

After 12 months off snow, and 11 months bloody hard work in the gym, Monday morning dawned to overcast skies and the chance to see just how the legs would cope back on the steeps of Treble Cone. After picking up the newly tuned skis it was onto the bus, driven by the irrepressibly French ex ski instructor and erstwhile photographer Thierry, who had sent me a Facebook message a few days prior to tell me the snow was "good". Good?? It is awesome!! Top to bottom cover, in fact well below the access road, of lovely soft, even dare I say it, powdery snow!!

The Ski Goddess Arrives

After a more than usually traumatic day of travel I arrived in Wanaka last Sunday evening. Here's a recap of the adventure to get here.

These guys are amazing

I am not naive enough to believe that Le Tour de France is completely clean. This is afterall the premiere race in the world, and it has a very dirty history of drug abuse for the purpose of getting athletes over the mountains and trails for a period of three weeks. But I do believe that the public expects the tour organisers to do everything they can to make it as clean as possible, and drug cheats will be ostracised. As a result I think it very unlikely that the majority are using perfomance enhancing drugs, but I don't think it is 100% clean, there's just too much money riding on it (pun intended).

The internet is a cruel thing

I am green with envy. Too much salivating over the webcams and posted videos of Treble Cone's opening day when a pristine white mountain got shredded. If I didn't have this access to all that information I'd be none the wiser and would just be looking forward to my ski trip without all the extra excitement. Frankly, the anticipation of skiing for six weeks on a well covered mountain when I'm seriously ski fit is almost killing me.

if you want to know what I'm talking about,

2 weeks to go

After anxiously perusing the webcams, weather forecasts and ski forums for the last few weeks, it is extremely refreshing to now see beautiful white snow covering the mountains rather than brown tussock. The mother of all storms has hit the south island of New Zealand, and Treble Cone has received over a metre in 3 days! In order that this new snow doesn't just slide down the hill in an avalanche, the punters need to wait for it to pack down and for the ski patrol lads and lasses to deem the mountain safe. But with gale force