Nick Brown - New Zealand snowboarder
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  Nick Brown - New Zealand snowboarder

Mount Olympus

8/30/2015

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A couple of days of bad weather was a good excuse for a rest, went for a couple of drives around Christchurch. Checked out the shipping container mall which was cool. An old greenstone carver we met there told us some greenstone tales and then showed us how to identify greenstone so we could get rid of a backseat full of useless rocks we had collected from our west coast greenstone hunt. Kept a few potential greenstone's to! 
Our next resort was Mount Olympus. The adventure to get to Mount Olympus is rad. Gravel roads, lakes, farm gates, driving across sketchy scree slope roads, all crazy scenic. When you finally get to the bottom of the road up you have to radio up from a hut to let them know your driving up, its super backcountry kiwi style. Upon arrival I could see how the snow was just solid ice, it looked terrible. Went up to the lodge for a coffee and after a hour or two it had softened a bit. After a couple of runs it started getting real soft and turned out to be the funnest lap, a few hits then a super slushy steep face then a few more hits. Ended up being an epic day and probably my favourite clubby spot I've been to in NZ. The lodge is real cool looking and the amount of terrain you could get to with short hikes is amazing. Can't wait to get back here next season!!
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Craigieburn

8/27/2015

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Next on our list and another place I had never been was Craigieburn. Craigieburn is another club field with a few nutcracker lifts in the Arthurs Pass area. It hadn't snowed for a couple of days so it was quite lucky it was super warm and the snow got kinda slushy. Craigieburn I found out later on has a pretty good reputation for being unfriendly. It definitely lived up to this almost straight away. Just as well we didn't go there to make friends with the staff. Anyway riding here was pretty fun although would have been great to get it on a powder day. Lots of long steepish slushy runs, goodtimes riding in the sun!
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Temple Basin

8/25/2015

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While I was on my trip to Australia my dad was busy with his bucket list resort tour ticking off all the resorts around Queeenstown and Wanaka. Next place our list was Temple Basin. I was amped for this one because I have never been there and everyone harps on about how awesome it is. We drove up the west coast from Queenstown, that drive is crazy just so scenic. It took us two days after visiting a bunch of sights, receding glaciers, taking some photos and stopping to look for greenstone which apparently you can find at the beach(problem is it doesn't look green in its natural form it looks like lots of other rocks on the beach so who knows what we found). Anyway eventually made it to Temple Basin. So at Temple you hike about a hour into a lodge to stay and ride. The lodge staff cook big dinners for everyone staying so that tasted amazing after that hike. Luckily he weather cleared that evening after a bit of fresh snow. I met up with Connor Harding, Piers Harding and Jeremy Town who where up for the day. Its been a while since I used nutcrackers which if you don't know is like the sketchiest lift system there is, you cannot relax around these things or you will loose fingers. Only ended up riding them a couple of times and then went and hiked a line and a couple of other features we found. Was a super fun day and was stoked to check out Temple although I only really got to scratch the surface of all the accessible terrain there. Hiking down at the end of a days hiking kinda sucked was wiped out by the time we got to the car! Next time I would stay longer.
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Dragon trip to Straya

8/22/2015

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#WeAreFrameless Down Under | Perisher & Thredbo from Dragon Australia on Vimeo.

I was lucky enough to get over to Thredbo and Perisher for a few days. I rode Perisher for the first time last year, the park there is super fun and reminds me of Snowpark in NZ, so was stoked to get back there. I was there with the NZ/AUS Dragon team to film a #weareframeless edit. It was fun to hang out and ride park. On the last day we rode the side county at Thredbo, the terrain out there was quite good to my surprise so was cool to check that out and try shoot a little Australian backcountry.   

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Mt Dobson

8/20/2015

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Mt Dobson was next on the Bucket list mish. I’m a fan of Dobson, Ive had some super fun days up there, hiking and just riding the chair and T-bar. Its a bit low tide on snow at the moment but still had a fun day cruising round there. There were a quite a few fun little hits and the snow was good. Another dump or two and it’ll be on.

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Freshies at Ohau

8/19/2015

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So this season I’m doing a mission with my dad, Peter, the mission is to ride every ski field in New Zealand. Its a bucket list goal for him so I decided to come along for the ride. There are so many small fields in New Zealand and it will be an adventure to check them all out. On top of that, this season New Zealand actually has snow!! I’ve ticked off a few already but the first one with just my dad and I was Ohau. Lots of people froth over Ohau, I’m not one of them. I always seem to have bad days there. But this time it turned it on with 30 cm overnight, sunny and no wind. Was an epic day! Also fished a bit and that seemed quite good to.

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Arthurs Pass

8/17/2015

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While we were filming for episode 2 of DDU episode 2 we had a couple of down days when the weather wasn’t so good so we did a pretty cool mission into Arthurs Pass. There is a few hikes you can do there but we did one up to a waterfall called The Devils Punchbowl. It was a quick hike 20 mins or something and the waterfall was super cool. We abandoned the track and viewing platform and walked right up close to the waterfall. Got soaked but it was worth it, the wind and spray coming off the bottom of it was crazy, just pelting us with water. So much cooler than I thought it was going to be!!

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A visit to Kiakoura

8/16/2015

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I’ve driven through Kiakoura so much but have never really spent any time there. Such a cool part of the drive south, along the rocky shoreline. We went there to film Blake Thornton surfing for the second episode of Diaries Down Under, its the middle of winter and I wasn’t really that excited about surfing that icey water. That view changed pretty quick after I saw the setup, a right hand point, waves quite small but it looked super fun. I managed to borrow some gear and get out there. We had a fire on the beach and there was a guy there pulling in Kahawai that were schooling just meters off the shore, seals hanging out, a few dolphins out there, so so epic!! We hung out till dark then came back first thing in the morning and done it all again before we had to nos off to Christchurch to catch a plane. Kiakoura I will be back! 

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Mount Cheeseman DDU trip

8/3/2015

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The last and only time I’ve been to Mount Cheeseman I landed on a bunch of rocks got a swellbow and jacked back. However I was stoked to get back there and the snow and weather was looking pretty good. We went to film for the second episode of Diaries Down Under. These trips are always awesome because usually we a checking out stuff we don't do much or haven't done and because of the good crew of mates thats always on them. This trip we had ozzie surfer Blake Thornton joining us and also my old man came along as I have a clubby mission planned with him after this one. Cheeseman stepped up the first couple of days and we got to hike our asses off and ride some good stuff. A couple of lines and a few pat downs and cliffs, so fun! We stayed at the lodge on the mountain, its cool being up there at night and there also seemed to be a lot going on mostly down at the ice skating rink. Local ice hockey teams played the first night, so we went down and had a go at slipping round. The second night there was some curling meet which was real funny. A lot of drunk old guys heckling each other. There was actually a fight to, ol Jerry got knocked out, pre serious for curling. Super good couple of days all up, shout out to the Cheeseman crew for having us up there! 

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