VIDEO: “Avalanche From Hell” This avalanche is from way back when on Mt. Ruapehu, New Zealand. This is a ridiculously enormous class 5 avalanche with the capacity to take out a village. There is a ski resort on this mountain just out of view to the looker’s left in this video. Ruapehu is a very sacred mountain to the Mauri people and one of the world’s most active volcanoes. It’s the largest active volcano in New Zealand at 9,177-feet above sea level. […] Avalanche SnowBrains | March 24, 2015 0 Comments
New Zealand Backcountry Conditions Report: The Stunning Summit of Mt. Ruapehu They say the best time to ski at Turoa is in the spring, and Iโd have to agree. While the lower mountain is looking quite grim, everything on the upper mountain still has amazing coverage. Ripping groomers in the morning followed by soft corny goodness off-piste by 11am make for lots of legs days this spring. From the summit, you can see into the epic crater lake that sits atop Mt. Ruapehu, which is an active volcano. The run down to the […] Conditions Report Guy LaDouche | October 16, 2014 3 Comments
Trip Report: Battle on Mt. Ruapehu, NZ | by Josh Daiek I powered down the table saw and took a seat for my lunch break when I noticed a missed call from Mike Douglas. His voicemail informed me of an upcoming ski trip to New Zealand, I frantically called back eager to hear the details. The trip was for a Salomon Freeski TV project, the plan, explore and expose some of the less popular skiing on the northern island. I was thrilled, Iโve always wanted to ski New Zealand. I tried not to sound overly […] Trip Report Josh Daiek | October 2, 2014 2 Comments
New Zealand Conditions Report: ‘Turoa Pow’ and Spring Skiing After being closed 3 out of 4 days (Fri, Sat, Mon) due to poor weather earlier in the week, Mt. Ruapehu got a much needed refill of the white stuff. Turoa got close to 30 CMs (just shy of a foot) during the closures, which gave us a really fun mini pow day on Sunday and two highly wind loaded spring days on Tuesday and Wednesday. Sunday had the best snow conditions of the week as we had a nice soft, wintery layer to ski on. Big Bowl, Little Bowl […] Conditions Report Guy LaDouche | September 24, 2014 0 Comments
Turoa, New Zealand Conditions: Bluebird Cookies and Cream After being closed for 3 days in a row due to wind and rain, I was quite skeptical as to what the conditions would be like today. My heart would break each of the last 3 days as I would look at the time lapsed images of the Turoa webcams to see the white snow melting away and exposing that jagged, volcanic rock. Lucky for us, the temps dropped […] Conditions Report Guy LaDouche | August 5, 2014 0 Comments
Mt. Ruapehu, New Zealand Weekend Conditions: Bluebird Sandwich with a Cloudy Filling Ruapehu Alpine Lifts (RAL) operates two ski areas on Mt. Ruapehu: Turoa and Whakapapa. Here are some key differences between the two: Whakapapa is on the north-western slopes of Mt. Ruapehu and gets more sun exposure than Turoa. They are the largest ski area in New Zealand. Turoa is on the south-western slopes of Mt. Ruapehu and gets more snow than Whakapapa. They have […] Conditions Report Guy LaDouche | July 27, 2014 0 Comments
Turoa, New Zealand Conditions Report: Best Day Yet, More Snow Coming! There were smiles all around on our first chair of the day today. I’m pretty sure I heard shouts of “Yewwwwwwww!!!” and “Winning!” on my first ski down. After a late start due to road closures, I was on the chair by 10am with a bright blue sky. There were 15 cms (that’s 5.9 inches for you ignorant Americans) of fresh, 10% moisture content, white gold […] Conditions Report Guy LaDouche | July 21, 2014 0 Comments