While half of our team is out chasing warm weather and waves the snow team packs up in the northern hemisphere and charges down to New Zealand for some summer shred action. Thanks to the ole tilt of our earth when the snow melts in the northern hemisphere and everyone starts showing their pale winter bodies we escape the embarrassment for another winter season running from late June to late October at Mt Ruapehu.
This season we have a 4 and 10 week instructor training program running there from July through to September and at the moment we are about half way through the program. The full 10 week course trains your for the SBINZ Level 1 and 2 snowboard instructor courses while the 4 week gives you the chance to smash out the level 1. These courses are ideal for those on a school break or anyone looking to jumpstart their career in the snowboard industry as you can be fully certified before the start of the northern winters. We finished our level 1 exams just over a week ago and are very pleased to say that our snowboarders had a 100% success rate on the exam again this season!
Mother nature was pretty pleased with all the hard work that we put into the level 1 so she rewarded us with a massive dump of snow the following day. Once the storm had cleared we had over 60cm’s of new snow to play in and with newfound confidence in our skills everyone charged like never before.
After a few days the snow was tracked but the good times continued, we have had about a week and a half of bluebird weather days and the end is not in sight yet. The crew at Turoa parks has made the most of the 2.5 meters of snow we have to build us a selection of perfectly sculpted parks for all ability levels. Luckily for us the level 2 exam includes a freestyle section so we have lots of excuses to spend days riding the park.
The mountain here is pretty unique compared to anything else you will encounter anywhere else is the world. The big difference here is we are riding on an active volcano, this means our terrain has been shaped over the millennia by lahar’s and lava flows leaving us with some deep natural halfpipe’s and tall rocky ridges. The end result is flowing terrain with a really surfy feeling to and lots of rocks to send it off if you have your gnarly boots on. The added bonus if a crater lake on top that is headed year round making for some seriously epic views!
Check out the video below if you want a glimpse into a typical day here on the volcano.
-Andrew