 |
| Night Slalom |
We left Truckee, buried under a fresh 2 feet of powder and after an epic 16 hour drive we arrived in Colorado to race at Steamboat Springs Colorado and Winter Park for 2xSl, 2xGS, 2xSG series. The first Slalom was a night race which was pretty exciting, a different experience for us as we had never raced under lights before. Jamie scored a small result in the second slalom, which was a promising boost for the season ahead. Unfortunately both of us struggled in GS and SG, the soft snow was something we were not very accustomed to and we found it difficult to put clean runs together.
 |
| Christmas Dinner! |
After 24 hours of draining driving we made it to Mammoth Mountain, California to spend Christmas with our brother, cousin and friends, it was great to catch up with them. There was a crazy amount of snow there after receiving around 5.5 m of snow just in December! We had an adventurous Christmas Day exploring this huge mountain and testing out our new powder skis. That evening we had an amazing Christmas dinner with a large group of New Zealanders alongside some Australians and Americans. There was an unbelievable amount of food including a 'choice as' Pavlova!
 |
| Huge rock jump powder day |
After Christmas we were treated to 2 feet of fresh snow at Sugar Bowl falling overnight which lead to an epic powder day! It is important to have these days away from the race lane and ski the powder, shred all over the mountain and just have a really fun time.
We had a week of productive training building towards the Park City Tech races, with bluebird sunshine everyday and the surface bullet proof from watering injection efforts. Nick discovered new feelings in his Slalom and we both continued to develop speed in training. We were feeling confident to perform in the upcoming races.
 |
| Park City bottom of GS/ Shaun White in Super pipe |
It was a great feeling going to Park City as it brought back memories of our Family Ski trip to Utah in 2004. The first two races were FIS University races, they were both very tough races. The field was strong and the formally World Cup piste was challenging with ankle braking bumps we had to charge through. However.... Our Confidence on the hill grew for the 2 remaining FIS Elite GS races, the weather was cold and the snow set up to be a great surface. Nick finally raced as he has been training with 2 impressive runs to score a result of 40 points. He was so relieved to have laid one down after his disappointing prior results in Colorado and in the University races. In the 2nd GS both of us were skiing fast but frustratingly we both blew it on the 3rd to last gate. Guttered!!! The Slalom’s were held at Snowbird half an hour away from Park City. Both coming away scoring results in the 2nd Slalom which we were super stoked about.
To wrap up this racing period, we ended with two Slaloms on our home hill here at Sugar Bowl. We were super pumped to be racing at home on the hill we have been training on for the last month. Nick had a frustrating two races straddling the first and Dnf'ing the second. Jamie skied sound but struggled to find the little extra speed he needed to move onto the podium.
Keep your eyes peeled for our next blog after our races in Jackson, Wyoming in the next couple of weeks.
The next morning we woke up early and headed over the hill to Bolinas Beach where we went for a surf!!! It was such a sweet day and we were soooo excited to be able to go surfing in San Fran. The water was dam cold and luckily we avoided the great white sharks everyone had told us about. Great times though our arms were wrecked afterwards.
