Comment Share Posted on Thursday August 27th at 4:55 p.m.

The 'I thought we were mates' temple story

My first event organising experience, lots of smack talk and phone calls. A weekend at Temple Basin with my friends, a big mountain competition (Canterbury Uni Snowsports Club vs. Canterbury Uni Boardriders Association vs. Otago University Alpine Sports Club) and a big mountain party. All photos by Riley Bathurst many many thanks!

Temple: almost unexplainable, definitely unforgettable. A club field open to all with no vehicle access, small wire basket to whisk your gear up the hill on a cable and a 40 minute walk for you. A lodge owned by us (Canty Uni Snowsports Club) and some of the best terrain in New Zealand.

The excitement and nervousness before the comp was different this time, hoping that it worked out and that everyone would get a fluid, fairly judged and fun run instead of the chilling and thrilling process of scoping a line and wondering how far it can be pushed. An ice axe and crampons adventure with patrol first thing to check the venue's suitability due to the overnight freeze, happy to find some light and fluffy stuff in the shade at the top! Secretly stoked to have patrol value my opinion enough to listen to me talk, feeling like one of the boys. A short but wide venue then, all about finding as many link-able features as possible.

Go time... so this is what it's like to be a judge, trying to find a fair balance between everyone, how do you compare someone slowly billy-goating a technical line to another spinning a big floaty three off of a cornice? Being stoked and scared for your friends as they drop into exposed lines, it's dust on crust up there don't fall now! Flattered that people care about this event enough to push themselves hard. Groans and cheers for the crashes and stomps brought on by the cocktail of emotions that a big mountain competition serves its patrons.

The comp winds down among sometimes wretched smiles, congratulations and consolations. We traverse out wide to make use of the hiking we've done to get to the venue and the snow that bit our crampons in the morning caresses our bases as sunny slush as we play around; riding switch carrying the Gnomes Snowsports banners that we hiked to the venue too - they've given us so many good prizes for the weekend and we're on our way down to share them around!

Important mentions: the standard ones first.

Girls (ski and snowboard combined); 3rd Natalie Van Looy (Snowboard, CUSSC), 2nd Estelle Baker (Snowboard, OUASC), 1st Jane McMullen (Snowboard, CUBA).

Guys (combined too); 5th Kevin McClorry (Ski, CUBA), 4th Matt Darnsey (Ski, CUBA), 3rd Walker Potts (Ski, CUSSC), 2nd Tom Southern (Ski, team supergrom), 1st Zak Hogg (Ski, OUASC).

Sick Bird; Fraser Payne (Guys snowboard, CUBA), Best crash; Mahari Rademaker (Girls ski, CUSSC)

Winning Clubs (from top 5 guys and top 3 girls); 3rd University of Canterbury Snowsports Club (5 points), 2nd Otago University Alpine Sports Club (7 points), 1st Canterbury University Boardriders Association (9 points)

The snow conditions weren't the best and a lot of other good riders threw down but crashed. Fraser Payne (president of CUBA) pioneered the most exposed line of the day, sending it bigger on a board than both the skiers who followed suit; Simon Reeves and Zak Hogg. See photos of Fraser from the weekend and more about him at

http://www.nzsnowboard.com/news/1548/fraser_payne_freeriding_checkout_at_temple_by_riley_bathurst   

Only Zak managed to stay on his feet through-out the line though, adding an air into a chute to Fraser and Si's lines before the compulsory right hand turn above a sizeable cliff band, taking home first and some flash new Rossignol ski bindings. Tom Southern skied technical and Walker Potts skied fast, Kevin McClorry and Matt Darnsey may have felt hard done by after bringing some smooth spins to the venue, 4th and 5th can be frustrating due to the lack of podium prizes, but that line difficulty score is all important and they effectively won the inter-club comp for CUBA.

Other important mentions that you may have thought no-one cared about;
All of you that were scared to compete but did, the snowboarders who battled to hike to the top of the venue due to the slippery crust under the dust and those that fell. I was proud to have all of you at the event. All the people who helped me make the event happen when I needed it the most, sitting in the cold as a starter or keeping the lifts open till after 5pm as a patroller. This event was run on volunteer work; so is Temple Basin, and that is why the weekend was so cheap, let's keep NZ this way. And the Sponsor with a capital S, Gnomes Snowsports (a Darfield store), who poured over a thousand dollars of prizes into the event just to support local freeriding. Gnomes gave away bindings, snow movies, hefty gift vouchers, clothing and more, much appreciated.

 And then the party, oh the party. Drinking with the staff, funnels with Andy who had vivid all over his face and could only say ‘I thought we were mates'. Dancing so hard to invited DJ Spagnet Brown's psy-trance beats that his non-skip CDJs skipped. Playing with firestick and eating toast outside in the rain at night. Lots of good people, come next year.

If you could be bothered getting up and going skiing the next morning there was great fresh snow to be had on the upper mountain, only about 10 of us made it up there and sessioned it until the patroller who had fallen over trying to play with firestick the night before told us it was home time/nap time. It was 4:30, and there was plenty of fresh left for the next day, I love the club fields. So that was how it was, an idea planted in my head by Grant Kaye in 2006, taking three years to come to maturity but providing a bountiful harvest. It was pretty much my perfect weekend. Watch out for it next year, bigger and better.

http://www.snowsportsclub.org.nz/

 http://www.templebasin.co.nz/