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, I’ve 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