Okay it’s been two months since I last blogged. For those still with me, yes, I’m alive.

My absence has been in part due to laziness, skiing and a concussion. (I’ll get to that shortly).

But first, let’s go all the way back to June 9th. My first day on skis this winter in NZ.

 

June 9th

At long last Cardrona Resort finally opened with all of one trail. I, unfortunately, had bought a season pass for Treble Cone (think of one as Whistler and the other as Blackcomb). And though TC wasn’t open yet, I wasn’t about to miss time on snow.

So I headed up to Cardies with Mike (the hungover one from my last post) where we met up with a few of his university friends. And although there was only one run open, it might’ve been one of my favourite days on snow ever.

The energy here is infectious. In Whistler, being jaded was the norm – unless there was at least 10cm of new snow, no one went up the mountain. And when they did, most of the day was spent bitching about tourists and lines or fighting with strangers over the best lines. A lot of the magic was lost.

Not here. Here, with one run open, the Kiwis were stoked just to be on planks. Our crew made the best of marginal conditions, taking core shots like badges of honour and happily ripping lines through the tussocks. I was immediately hooked.

 

June 15th

On June 15th, I dropped Victoria off to the Queenstown airport to head back to the States for a wedding. That night, there was a going-away party for one of the Mons girls and I was incredibly nervous. Having Victoria as my sidekick had become something of a security blanket and now I was going to go to this party by myself, not really knowing anyone.

It turned out to be one of my best nights here. I got to meet so many new people who had just rolled into town and really get to know the Mons crew outside of work. In Whistler, I did a lotttt of partying (sorry Mom), and though sometimes I feel like I should’ve used my time more productively, I also know that I met some of my best friends this way. So, don’t judge me when I say that, from a social perspective, this party allowed me to feel a little more in my comfort zone. I felt a little more like my Whistler self. And I could really start to see how awesome the group of Wanaka people are.

 

June 21st – 23rd

After not skiing for two weeks, I was chomping at the bit to get back at it after that first amazing day at Cardies. This weekend was Industry Days in the Lakes District, which meant that each of the ski companies here hosting demo days at Coronet Peak, The Remarkables and Cardrona. I didn’t get to go to Coronet Peak, but on the Friday, June 21st, the Mons crew got a day out of the office to go to The Remarkables.

This was the first time that I would ski with the office crew, and honestly, I was a little nervous. Everytime that I’ve thought I could hold my own in Wanaka, it turns out everyone else is an expert. This has happened with waterskiing, biking, etc. So, even though I’m a confident skier, I wasn’t sure how I would measure up.

Despite my fears though, it was another amazing day. The Remarkables reminded me of skiing the alpine terrain in Whistler – so many hidden areas in the various bowls. Again, there wasn’t much snow, but the energy of the Mons crew made the day incredible. We skied from 10am until 3pm and had so many hilarious chairlift moments. It was really just awesome to get out with the work crew outside of the office.

Saturday and Sunday were spent at Industry Days at Cardrona. Luckily, everyone at Mons got a two day pass for the demo event, so I didn’t have to buy day passes.

The cool thing about skiing here – as opposed to Whistler – is that there’s only a limited number of lifts. So no matter what, you run in to people. I got to run into a ton of people that I had met at the party the weekend before and get to know them even more.

 

June 28th

Alright, this is how I knew the winter was officially in full swing. Friday, July 28th was the Golden Mile. A few years ago, someone figured out that if you visit all fourteen bars in Wanaka on a pub crawl, then it equals a total walking distance of a mile. And thus, the Golden Mile was born.

This year, the theme was 80s disco (yes, I know, there was no disco in the 80s, but go with it. It gave us the excuse to wearing neon and disco clothes).

We started out pretty tame and by the end of the night, the group was scattered across all the different bars in Wanaka. Early on in the night, we had a giant speaker set up on wheels that we played disco music on and brought into every bar we visited. Because we started at 4pm, many of the bars we went into were in the middle of their dinner service when we came by. So yeah, we were those assholes, dressed entirely in neon with giant wigs on, blasting Dancing Queen from a giant speaker while people tried to enjoy their meals.

Shortly after 9pm and after stopping in at one of the clubs for the Silent Disco, we were wreaking this same havoc by parading through the street while traffic patiently waited for us to move our dancing butts off the road. It was one of the funniest nights.

The next morning was spent being entirely hungover and useless. That Sunday, I got my shit together and went for a bike ride in Sticky Forest. Since Treble Cone wasn’t open yet, I may as well go bike riding.

 

July 5th – 7th

I literally just had to go back and look at my Instagram Stories to figure out what the hell I did this weekend. It seems to be a mix of wine night with Victoria, climbing with Victoria, B & Lottie and then riding bikes on Sunday. Good mix, I’d say.

 

July 11th

Alright. Here’s the bit where you get to find out about my very ~dramatic~ crash.

So Jono and I were given the morning off of work on this Thursday to go up and get some content from TC, which was finally open for the season. It was such an amazing day. TC is at the top of this crazy winding and steep road. Jono and I grabbed coffee in the morning and the drove up and met the rest of the Mons crew, plus our photographer Louis. We were also joined by a Mons ambassador named Tori.

The day was awesome. TC is so fun, and even though there was only trail open, we managed to get some really cool shots.

It was getting close to noon and Jono and I had to be back at the office at 1pm. But I wanted to go for one last lap. So we clipped back into our skis and headed up. I don’t remember what we talked about on the chairlift. At the top, just before heading down, I remember yelling, “last lap guys! Make it count!”

Then I remember coming around a giant turn. Jono had gone wide and I went tight into the corner. And then, the next thing I remember is waking up and not being able to get enough air into my lungs.

Jono watched the whole thing happen. Apparently I came tight around the corner and the man in front of me turned suddenly in front of me. I didn’t have enough time to stop and swerved to avoid him, going off the trail and straight into a snow cannon.

I think I must’ve got thrown from there, because I ended up several feet down the hill from where the snow gun was. I got knocked out and came to with the wind knocked out of me, with my music still blaring in my ear from headphone. The first thing I remember is how loud the music was and ripping the headphone out of my ear. Then Jono was next to me, trying to get me to breathe deep. Then I just remember lying down on the snow.

It seemed like five minutes and then patrol was there. I found out later that it took about a half hour for them to get there and many of my friends had passed by in the meantime to grab my gear and see if I was okay. I feel like I was black-out drunk the whole time. I don’t remember any of this.

When patrol first got to me, I remember them asking me my name, what month it was, where I was. They took my helmet off and started to casually talk about how there was blood coming from my ear. They said it very calmly, but I also know that blood coming from your ear is a bad sign. I remember being confused about why no one seemed worried about that. Unbeknownst to me, a second patroller had stepped out of my earshot to tell the base doctor that I might need a heli-evac.

Not to worry, this has a happy ending. Somewhere along the way, lying in the snow, my brain started to work and I remembered the first thing that had been on my mind when I came to – my music was incredibly fucking loud. I had had my headphone in my ear; the ear that was now bleeding.

“I had a headphone in my ear.” I remember saying. “Could it be bleeding because of that?”

Turns out, when I hit the ground, my headphone had been shoved into my ear and the plastic had cut a nice round piece of skin out of my inner ear. Hence all the blood.

So with brain bleed nixed from my list of injuries, patrol, Louis, Tori and Jono all helped load me into the sled and bring me down to the base doctor. After a quick examination, he determined that my shoulder, head and back were potentially injured. So, I was stuck on a backboard for two hours while we waited for the ambulance.

Meanwhile, everyone else took this opportunity to take photos, naturally.

While all this is happening, I had to pee SO bad. I couldn’t get up off the backboard to go and I tried so, so hard to use a she-wee (Google it), but I kept getting stage fright. At one point, I had to pee so bad (and couldn’t) that I was literally bawling.

They loaded me into the ambulance, still having to pee and down we went. At the bottom of the mountain, the pain from having to pee was so bad that the ambulance had to pull over. Both paramedics got out and let me get over my stage fright. And finally I peed in the she-wee. I have literally never been so grateful to pee. Never will I take a toilet for granted again.

Meanwhile, Jono had seen me off in the ambulance and drove my car back to Wanaka for me. He also stopped into the office and told everyone what had happened. I found out later he was pretty shook up. Being the only one that saw me crash, I guess it was pretty bad – he thought I was going to be way more fucked up.

I’m still not really sure how to thank him for everything he did that day. He really kept me calm and made sure I was okay. Him and I have a weird relationship where we’re constantly bickering or annoying each other, although more often than not, it’s just play. But after today, I realized he might be one of the best friends I have in Wanaka. He looked after me.

Back in the ambulance, I fell asleep on the way to Queenstown Hospital. Once there, I got into a CT and back x-ray and was finally cleared and allowed off the backboard. Then I had my shoulder x-rayed where it was determined that I just had a sprain. And a pretty nasty concussion.

I was finally allowed to look at my phone where I had a shit-ton of messages from everyone at varying degrees of freaking out. It was then that I found out that Victoria was coming to get me at the hospital, along with Mike. Jono had been prepared to come get me, but when he called her, Victoria had said she would handle it.

Somehow it seemed entirely normal to me to walk out of the hospital without shoes on and my Converse have since been lost. Victoria picked me up, got me some chicken nuggets and we made our way back home. At some point in the car ride home, Mike determined that because I was so concussed, I was basically a vegetable. I henceforth become known as “le petit brocoli”.

The next week was basically full of sleeping. Concussions are exhausting and I was so sore. I felt like I had got hit by a truck. That said, I got so many messages from people – both close friends and people I had only met a few times – to make sure that I was okay. There were also a few people who stopped by to bring treats and say hi. I was so touched and it made me realize what a special community Wanaka is. On top of that, Victoria was basically my guardian angel. She made sure I was taking my pain meds, getting enough sleep, eating good food – being a parent, really. Between her and Jono, I don’t know what I did to deserve them.

July 19th – 21st

I returned to work with a concussion on Tuesday, but only for four hours before I was too out of it. For the rest of the week, I gradually got back to work, but was still experiencing symptoms.

That being said, we had had a trip planned to ski at Ohau that weekend and stay in a teepee and I really didn’t want to stay home – I was starting to go crazy with boredom.

So, vowing not to ski, we set off for Ohau. Luckily, the weather on our ski day was so subpar. It was a total whiteout and you couldn’t see anything. So the best part of the whole trip was the camping. We had all brought our own tents, but spent most of the time cozied up in the teepee. It was gigantic. We cooked freeze-dry meals for dinner, had hot toddys as dessert and it was so warm that we actually got to de-layer, thanks to the woodstove inside. At bedtime, me, Victoria and JP all snuggled in to our three-man tent.

 

Aug 2nd – 4th

The last weekend of July was pretty low-key. I had one day at Treble Cone where I did a couple laps mostly by myself, trying to feel less scared. Eventually, I met up with Lottie and a few others and got to explore the Saddle – the gnarlier side of TC.

This past weekend though, was one for the books. While I was still a broccoli, Victoria had bought tickets for her and I to go to a Fleetwood Mac cover band. It was an AMAZING night. We spent the whole time at the front of the crowd, belting out my favourite songs and dancing with the oldies in the crowd. No drama, no mess, just pure fun. It was awesome.

The next day, I made a last minutes decision to go up to Cardrona instead of TC to ski with a few new people that I hadn’t really spent much time with before. It was a beautiful, sunny day and we ripped groomer laps all day. I was with a group of really great skiers and for the first time I felt like myself on my skis.

Which is good, because on Sunday, TC’s famed Motatapu Chutes opened for the first time this season and hooooly shit. They’re scary. I get why everyone says that TC is the expert mountain in the area.

But the snow was incredible and it was so cool to watch some of the pros boost off of cornices into the chutes. I did eventually get over my fear and drop in.

We skied a couple laps before the fog set in and then called it a day. I left feeling like I was finally back after my crash and really feeling confident again.

As it stands, I’m still in physio for my shoulder and my range of motion is still pretty limited. My back is pretty much back to normal and my whiplash is gone too. My concussion is still kicking around. It’s mostly visual – I get headaches if I look at a screen for too long and my vision gets blurry sometimes. But in NZ, if you show concussion symptoms for more than two weeks after your accident then you get enrolled in a government-sponsored concussion clinic. It’s free and they help get you back to normal with different brain exercises. So I’m in that now, and hopefully on the way.

In the meantime, they’ve warned me against any “extremely risky” activities… does that include skiing?

• JB