Euroadtrip! Part 3, the finale

Comment Share Posted on Friday July 30th at 12:57 p.m. Tweet

Cliffs, volcanoes and a roadie from the mediterranean beaches of Croatia to the Arctic Circle of Sweden in a Volvo that we fixed with a coke can.

As always the photos are slideshows so click em through and check the caption-arific description-ics. 

BUT FIRST

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE vote for me at Steinlager Pure Futures. I need the support to somehow get back to Europe to compete again!

Just go to http://www.purefutures.co.nz/neil-williman.aspx (you need to register with your details but they don't send you any junk mail I promise, and you can get free beer vouchers!) It only takes a second.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE!!!

Soooo anyway the short version of the long story:

We went to Norway for a Freeride competition (aka extreme skiing) and I got my best ever result. Then a volcano erupted in Iceland and we got stuck in Oslo for a couple of days trying to fly home to Chamonix. Norway is one of the most expensive countries in the world. Insurance? We eventually made it home to Cham for the last few weeks of the season. It snowed a bit so we went shooting and hit the biggest cliff we've ever hit (photos halfway through this). As the snow dwindled we skied park in the sun and I learnt double backflips (video in my 08-09 season edit even though it was actually 2010, there's a video of that big cliff frontflip attempt in there too, they're both near the end).

The season drew to a close and it was time to say bye to Cham, for now at least. Pete stayed on to work as a chalet host and model until his parents arrived so he could go traveling with them. I pushed my flights back by 5 weeks and changed from flying out of Zurich to out of Stockholm. An adventure was brewing. It was lucky I'd found a Swedish girlfriend because we were going to the Arctic Cirlce, to the northern border of Sweden and Norway for the Scandinavian Big Mountain Championships, and her and her friends just happened to be driving home to Sweden. So we turned it into a 3 week roadie and went through Eastern Europe on the way. We slept in abandoned castle watchtowers, got searched at borders and fixed the car with a coke can when it broke down. The experience of a lifetime, the true euroadtrip. Read on for details, and stories that I found hilarious and I hope you will too. Also check it out I put a google map of our trip into this page so you can zoom in on it and scroll around, aren't I clever.

View Larger Map

^^^^ Look look you can zoom in on this by double clicking it! ^^^^

Yarns...

YARN UNE: Norway. 

I was so sick the night before we left that I didn't think I was going to be able to go. I had to get Pete to put all my stuff in a pile next to my bag next to the toilet so I could pack and spew simultaneously. We were running late on the drive to the airport so we had to take the windy road down Chamonix Valley to Geneva at speed. Also Pete's French girlfriend came along to drive our car back to Cham for us, and to say bye to Pete because she was leaving for a round the world trip before we got back, so they were quietly getting busy in the back. None of this helped me feel any better.

A huge thanks here to our Norwegian freeskier friend Anne-May who picked us up from the airport, gave us a place to stay in Oslo, gave us a ride to the competition in Roldal (5 hours drive), hooked us up a place to stay there, took us back to Oslo, gave us a tour of the city and dropped us off at the airport again! Plus she killed it in the comp. Thanks Anne-May couldn't have done it without you! Also the drive there through the beautiful fjords of western Norway blew my mind. Amazing.

The competition itself, named the Roldal Freeride Challenge, was intimidatingly high level. They showed us a highlights video from 2009 and it was scary, check out the winners run at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0hwSrh9dU8&feature=related

On the first scheduled day of competition the volcano erupted in Iceland so the comp was postponed till the next day because the medical evacuation helicopter couldn't fly due to ash in the air. We spooned in covered trailers then drank a lot of redbull, got too excited and tried to trick off cliffs for fun. 

The second day came out bluebird but it had been super windy so everything was stripped and most of the venue was bulletproof ice. Pete and I joked that it gave it gave us an advantage because it was like NZ. I was happy with how I skied, making my top section up on the fly and attempting to air into a chute that had had some snow blown into it by the ravaging wind. I overshot it and landed on flat ice at the bottom, bouncing off my back and somehow keeping it together, skiing out on my left ski only for about 10 meters before getting my other one back down. It was stoked to make the finish line on my feet and the judges must have liked it too, qualifying me 4th equal for finals.

Pete skied the same line and stayed on his feet too, so we couldn't understand why he came in 25th, missing out on finals by 10 spots. I talked to one of the judges later and they thought he had fallen when he hadn't. Bummer. Check out the video of the day below. Pete and I have some talking shots at 0:30, most of my line is between 1:04 and 1:12 (they cut it after I bounce my landing but I skied it out), and Pete hitting the same air as me and not falling is at 1:20. Pete backflipping off a drop jacked on red bull on the postponed day is at 3:20.

The volcanic eruption made the weather go crazy and it snowed 60cm of some of the heavest snow I have ever seen. The avalanche danger went off the scale and the finals got cancelled. 4th equal in a 3* (double points) Freeride World Tour Qualifier Event stoked me out and we had a couple of days of radical partying, Pete being such a good man that he was stoked for me and not too bummed for himself. Our Norwegian friends Anne-May and Vivian took third in chicks skiing and snowboarding respectively too, good vibes. Alcohol is ridiculously expensive in Norway though (like $14 NZD a beer at the bar), so we did a lot of partying in the car outside, and somehow Pete convinced me to eat a cold hamburger pattie off the concrete as it got snowed on. Somehow I can't say no to that guy and his seductive lines such as 'you're not above that Neil'. Is that how he gets all his girls?

So back in Oslo we go to the airport because they tell us our flight might go, it's a few days after the Icelandic Volcanic and things depend on the direction of the wind now. We get there and it's cancelled, and the options are to take the same flight to Geneva in 6 days, or take a flight to Nice the next day. Nice is 6 hours drive from Chamonix though and the airline wasn't offering to help us get home from there. It wasn't much of a choice really so we took that early flight to Nice- too early to leave the airport and come back. The only place to stay at the airport was a 4 star hotel, so with careful reading of our insurance policy and crossed fingers we took the plunge. Norway is really ridiculously expensive and the bill almost maxed out Pete's credit card, but damn it was good! Some of the best food and accommodation I've ever had.

So when the flight took us to Nice we realised that we should've booked public transport home in advance- it was booked out since Nice was one of the only places getting flights, so buses and trains were packed. So we got a rental car (over-maxing Pete's card), and had to get a nicer one than the basic so it was big enough to fit our skis. We drove home down the Mediterranean Coastline, hung out on quaint wee beaches and went swimming. I mean it would've been rude not to right? There was a nervous wait to see if insurance was going to pay once we got home to Cham since we'd racked up $1600 NZD in two days but they came to the party and repaid us in full. Thanks Southern Cross I'll definitely get you again, and recommend you to all my friends!

YARN DEUX: The end of Chamonix

Back in Cham it snows and I ski the Valley Blanche with my godfather (a 22km glacier run) and Pete goes to huck a big cliff for a photo. He starts a small avalanche and it sweeps him off the face of cliff over dangerous exposure, he's lucky to walk away that day. Check out the sequence of it below.

I didn't join Pete that day because the snow report said that area was going to be closed, so having got my glacier powder fix I was frothing to join him a couple of days later when it snowed again. Standing at the top of the run-in the photographer gets on the radio and tells Pete they're ready for him to drop. Both photographers are ready, and our Swedish buddy Ivar is waiting with them with his skis on 'in case we need help getting our skis or something'. We all know he really means 'in case you get messed up and need help to continue breathing', but no one wants to voice that. This thing is the biggest drop I've ever hit, from take off to landing it must be 25 meters. This must be running through Pete's head, along with falling down it last time, because the photographer is back on the radio telling him to drop again. He wanted to hit it first because he thinks that will make the best photo (more sluff and no tracks or landing marks), but the snow conditions are exactly the same as last time- steep, sun affected, heavy fresh. We both know the chances of it sliding are high. I break the silence to ask him-

'You gonna drop Pete?'

More silence. He's frozen

'You want me to drop Pete?'

'If you want to man, I'm scared it's going to slide again, where are you going to go?'

'I'm going to start skiers left then come back across to hit it on an angle to skiers right so if it slides it won't take me with it'

'Neil you realise that if you do that and it takes you you're going to fall down 30 plus meters of sharp rocks?'

.... 'Yeah man. I'm going to try frontflip it.'

.... 'Good luck bro.'

*chsh* 'What's happening up there boys is someone going to drop?' *chsh* Gus and Filip are getting sick of holding their cameras at exactly the right angle. The crowd that has gathered at the top of the lift not far below the cliff is watching silently and expectantly. Pete gives the photographers the heads up.

'Yeah Neil is dropping Gus'

I feel like I can almost bite the tension in the air. My stomach is so tight no butterflies could possibly live in there. I drop.

The first few turns at a time like this are a release, something is happening now, something else other than standing there wishing that you were not standing above the thing you're standing above. After my first couple of turns I glance back to check for sluff (small avalanche) that could sweep me off the wrong place, but there's nothing. It's stable. Here comes the lip. Pop. Frontflip. I'm too nervous, I throw it too hard and I'm already around and only halfway down the drop. I fully extend to try to slow my rotation but still land on my side and face. I'm OK. I only bent my pole.

Pete sends it straight air, gets heaps of sluff going and gets a sick shot. I can't run it here cause it's good enough that I'd have to pay for it, so you'll have to buy the 2010 issue of NZSkier. Pete's take on the day is in there as an article, as well as an article we wrote about our missions to Switzerland and Slovakia (a shorter version of my last couple of blogs, Euroadtrip! parts one and two). We enjoy the rest of the day shredding pow with big smiles on our faces and I know so later because the wrinkles I get when smile are the only places on my face that aren't sunburnt. I think back to how I thought I was going to quit skiing when I crashed at the competition in Switzerland in Feburary and hurt my shins (also in Euroadtrip! Part 1). I know I'm never going to do that now, it's days like this that justify all the choices I've made for the last 7 years since I finished school. We're backflipping off 7 meter cliffs that we've never hit just for fun, and laughing when the photos get deleted accidentaly. Everything else feels small after going that big. 

We enjoy late season pow and spring park as the May melt hits. This is when I learn double backys and put footage of them in an edit that I get around to making of my last couple of seasons, also a previous blog entry called To Tahoe and Beyond! And Back, to NZ.

So I push my flights back from the 21st of April to the 25th of May, and from Zurich to Stockholm. It's time to say goodbye to Cham and Pete, for now (we have a late night drinking session after my goodbye party and share bromance broments). Pete sticks around in Cham for a few weeks in a sweet apartment and chill job that his girlfriends Mum hooks him up and does chainsawing and modeling work to pay off his credit card till his parents get there to go traveling. Turns out that in the modeling work he has to pretend to be a couple with his ex-girfriend haha, but he's getting paid 500 euro a day for the awkwardness. His parents get there and he takes them on a hike from the valley floor of Chamonix to the top of Brevent ski resort (now closed), a 1500 vertical meter climb, carrying a heavy metal detector to look for the helmet camera he lost under the snow there at the start of the season (see previous blog entry The French Re-evolution). Turns out he didn't need to carry it- so much snow has melted that it's sitting on the surface when he gets there, stoked! But since insurance has paid him out for losing it they want it back. Bummer. 

YARN TROIS: EUROADIE

So with 9 ski bums and 2 volvos we traverse 9 countries in 2 weeks. It's my Australian buddy Sam Porter and myself plus 7 Swedish including my girlfriend Tove, her flat and her friends flat. We've all spent the season skiiing/shooting/partying together and it's an awesome crew so I'm pretty excited about the adventure. It surpassed all my expectations and I can't even begin to describe how good it was. I'll chuck in some photos but there are so many more, they're on my facebook (cause well if you've read this far I'm gonna assume your friends with me one facebook. The roadie photos start at photo 100 in the album Europe). We camped in places we were not meant to camp including abandoned castle watchtowers (check the photo) and super expensive flash looking beachside resorts in Croatia. Turns out the castle watchtower was on a peninsula on the other side of an amputee mobility rehabilitation center that we had to walk back through to leave. Also the beach resort, designed for 10,000 people a day, was empty because May is meant to be too cold to swim in the Mediterranean (we thought it was fine). The only other people at the campground were there for a motorbike convention, so it was an interesting combination of us young ski bums with our bright clothes and older vodka drinking, leather wearing, Harley riding, Eastern European bikies.

At the border between Slovenia and Croatia we go stopped and searched, I suppose we looked suspicious with our no shoes, hackey playing, poncho wearing ways. I thought it was funny, well funny enough to take a photo anyway. The border patrol didn't think it was very funny and took the camera off us to delete the photo, searched us pretty throughly and held onto our passports for a disconcertingly long time while speaking to each other in Croatian. In the next country the car breaks down in the middle of the night somewhere in Austria and we spend the next evening in a McDonalds carpark in Dresden putting the exhaust back together with a Coke can. Dresden has a very industrial feel since it's been completely rebuilt since the Allies destroyed it with fire bombing in WW2, killing more civilians than when the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.

So from Chamonix we stayed in Venice, Croatia, Vienna, Prague, Berlin and travelled onwards. We got a ferry from Germany to Denmark on our way to Sweden but stocked up on alcohol before we got on (like I said it's stupidly expensive in Scandinavia), with 3 litre goons of vodka. Awesome. Buying the tickets for the ferry is a process because we decide we want to go back into Germany before getting on the boat so we can buy alcohol, the vendor says he understands but clearly doesn't because he keeps saying "Yes..... but.... I think it would be better, if you went to Denmark". Frustratingly hilarious. Another ferry ride from Denmark to Sweden and the Swedes are as excitable as puppies. They're home after almost 6 months away.

Half of the crew return to their homes in Sweden but half of us continue on in the other car to the Northern end of Sweden, which is just as far away as the distance we have already travelled. After a couple of days of solid driving we arrive at Riksgransen, which is on the border between Norway and Sweden and 400km into the Arctic Circle. It doesn't get dark here! We're here for the Scandinavian Big Mountain Championships. It's Tove's first competition but it doesn't go her way, she falls down the venue while practicing her line the day before the comp and goes to hospital with a suspected broken back. It's pretty scary for both of us, I had to jump off a drop and ski across to catch her to stop her falling off an 8 meter drop at the bottom of the venue. Her back is fine but she has massive bruising and cuts on it and her ass, she can't really sit or walk properly, it's lucky she was wearing a back protector or things might have been a lot worse.

I ski in the qualifiers the next day but I'm not happy with my run, I come in 28th. The top 35 go through to finals though so I have a chance to improve on it. Suddenly Tove turns up at the top of the course, she's going to ski her run! She doesn't drop anything but skis solidly, especially since she can't walk properly! She comes 10th out 20, choice. Unfortunately the finals are cancelled due to bad weather so I finish 28th, though it was a pretty high level competition- Henrik Windstedt (former Freeride World Tour champion) skied his line the way he meant to and came 5th. Combined with with 4th in Norway though I'm sitting 7th on the rankings for the Freeride World Tour Qualifying Series so far for the 2010-2011 season, so thats cool. Check out the rankings at 

http://www.freerideworldtour.com/multimedia/docs/2010/06/FWQ11_OverallRanking_SKI_Men_01.06.10_.pdf

The dinner and afterparty are crazy, Scandies know how to party! It's fun to party with the French, German and Andoran guys that I know there, we are 4 of the 5 guys present that aren't from Scandinavia, and when drunk everyone else's ability to speak English is definitely impaired. It's interesting to see how much body language plays a part in these conversations, often hilariously so.

So we make our way back to Stockholm, past the gigantic frozen lakes and rivers of the arctic circle, past the rapidly melting 4 meter snow pack that has rivers running through it, back to a place that has grass and nights. We hang out in the sun for a couple of days and talk about how good the last 6 months have been, and how the last month has topped it off so well. We go to outdoor festivals and walk around in Stockholm on a hot day, something every guy must do sometime in his life. Then it's time for me to fly home. I can't imagine a better introduction to Europe. I say bye to Tove which is a bummer since I'm not going to see her for three months, but at least she's coming to NZ from August till November.

I enter the crazy limbo of international travel on a funny note- my first flight only has a luggage allowance of 20kg, not 30kg like the rest, so I have to put on all my ski gear for it again (the same as I wrote about in Lost and Hungry in Chamonix). Full circle ay. Stockholm-Hamburg-Dubai-Bangkok-Sydney-Christchurch over two days. It's funny to see them difference between these countries, even in the airports check the photos). I'm home. Everything is the same but I'm not. What am I going to do now?