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Posted on Monday September 14th at 2:32 p.m.
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M - Janina and I are in awe of what is about to happen in the following three days.
Chilling out by the fire waiting for the heli's to arrive
We wait at 8am by the fire in the cafe across the road from the helicopter landing zone in Makarora (half an hour drive from Lake Hawea). We both have no previous history in this competition to relate to, but travelling around the world competing in Europe and North America; people would hear that we live in NZ and would bring up the Heli challenge with nothing but wicked things to say about it.
M - The upcoming three days will be filled with that of the World Heli Challenge happenings. First day being today, will be the Free Ride day. As we've been told... we will be heli'd to the top of an undisclosed mountain face, dropped off at the top, and from there we inspect the face from the top looking for any natural hits we can build in the space of 45 minutes.
M - Not only is the face itself awesome... not a gnarley big mountain face but one of blind rollers with steep landings and natural hips, cornice drops and cliffs; but it is also an epic day. Not a cloud in the sky, so perfectly still with nothing but an ounce of a breeze, but not too hot so as the snow melts..... perfect!
Bottom of the venue and female snowboarders!
The female skiirs!
All the female competitors
M - Janina and I without a doubt pair up and are so amped at all the different features.
J - Thats right. Maria and I with our shovels out and building lips left right and centre... Yeah maria we make a good team!
M - We plan to drop part of the cornice on the top ridge, build in a little ramp over a blind roller, and a massive hip towards the end of the run. Shovels out, amping on how cool the setup of the competition is and getting help from all around to build hits in such as from Ingrid Backstrom, Jacqui Pascoe, Tim Dutton and Mike Wilson. We eventually get to do two runs down on now "our" free ride face - and are all free to huck whatever we want over whatever hits are built in.
J - Maria and I had the exact same run with the same hits the most epic one definitely being our last hip. The day ends perfectly as we both end up taking first place.... a perfect ending to a perfect day!!
Chilling out at the landing zone after a hard day's work!!
J - Now back down on the landing zone after a hectic helicopter ride down, we drink beers in the warm sun and green grass and wait in anticipation to see what the face for the big mountain day will be like - little did we know that it would blow our minds!!
M - If you want to see more of the day check out the vid below.
M & G
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