Winter Festival

Queenstown Winterfest has started down here, pretty timely with the cold weather. Friday night was the opening with live music and fireworks, since then crazy cats have been throwing themselves in the lake in birdman contests & other crazy events.
Witnessed someone base jump off a paraglider over the centre of town, which definetely was spectacular.

The cold itself has been keeping me indoors, with temperatures in the minus catagories. Ice on the side of the shotover river and reasonably frequent snow showers. The skiiers and boarders will be loving it.
A week of random work here then will head to Timaru for a few days before going back to dunedin to find a real job for awhile.

Until next time, hope your warmer than me.

Antz

Back to Winter

So here i am sitting back in Dunedin, after 8 weeks in Costa Rica, Panama & California i've returned to winter. Why? Well various reasons, NZ still has that luring power so does the prospect of actually having cash in my pocket & spending time with my girl.

Will update the blog in the next couple of days with a wrapup of the Cali-Daze and the trip in its whole complete package.

Check back soon, for photos, words and maybe video???

Antz

Chamberlain Falls & Photos

So monday was a write-off, just relaxed and had a short playboat run. Today paddled the Chamberlain Falls section of the North Fork of the American, again amazing scenery with some nice rapids, nothing that compared to the other day but still awesome to be in a boat.
Just over a week to go here in Cali, then back to NZ. So anyone with winter missions in the planning I may well be interested.

Check out the photos below from sundays trip on Giant Gap.

Antz

Giant Gap - Nth Fork of the American

well yesterday paddled the Giant Gap section of the North Fork of the American, its quite a lengthy name really isn't it? 16miles of Class 4 & 5, was awesome, one of the deepest canyons in California and really really beautiful with wicked rapids. Had a 2.5mile walk in which was all downhill through poison oak and swarms of mosquitoes.

Was charging there were 10 of us, 2 kayaks and 3 rafts, so myself and another guide Christo were paddling and then everyone else was in rafts, they were all guides from here and there, first day of their new Class 5 of the week program. Not that its really a program they just decided that they should do at least one solid class 5 run per week for summer, and this was the first.

So I styled all the rapids, portaged one called locomotive, a massive river wide hole with two possibilities for lines hard right & left, but the boil behind the hole was surging between flat and sloping about 15 degrees back in to the meat. I didnt like this thought so went with the portage, one raft ran it. All clean and continued on down, only scouted one rapid for the day everything else we read & ran.

Only carnage for the day was in the final rapid, I was in front, did the top section, went to catch an eddy mid stream, washed out the back and was forced to go right (normal being left apparently). I dropped into a big juicy hole, pulled through allright then flipped on a seamline. Cracked my paddle against my head and cut about 2cm gash just above my eyelid. Its all good though, didnt even realise it was cut until i looked in the mirror, the water washed all the blood away and it just felt like I'd taken a hit.

So stats

16miles, Class 4-5, 2.5mile walk in, avg fpm 55, max fpm 125, flow about 1600cfs, duration 8 hours on water (damn rafts)

Paddled with Christo from Whitewater Connections, and guides from Voyages Whitewater

Antz

Bring on the class 5

Arrived in Coloma

Been put up by my mate Kyle from Queenstown Rafting, so staying at Whitewater Connections Camp. First two day here have been spent on the Lower South Fork of the American, once in a raft and one kayaking. Norm & Piwi from Bliss-stick Kayaks hooked me up with MAC to use while im here, so thanks to those guys.
Plans are already in the making for some solid class 5 missions over the next two weeks.

So stay tuned for reports & hopefully photos.