All attempts at alliteration…might have run their course, but I can’t promise to warehouse the word wizardry just yet! Finally, some decent snowfalls hit the Aussie Alps mid last week, dumping over a foot of fresh to complement the good work that has been done by snow makers making the most of clear night skies and cold temperatures. I had been waiting for this first decent snowfall before I made my way up the Hume Highway on a four-hour trek to Falls Creek, but I wasn’t expecting for my first snow trip to be in the middle of July, more than a month after the official opening of the season. However, it was worth the wait!
I stayed overnight at a motel in Wangaratta (complete with a defunct dollar bed massager and cling-wrapped cup and saucer – for freshness of course!), driving through the foggy winter morning ’til the white mountain peaks were visible in the Kiewa Valley on Friday. I timed my run to perfection, arriving to a full ski-in-ski-out village, clear blue skies, no wind…and two new small jumps in the Drovers Dream Beginners Terrain Park. My two days at Falls Creek were great, catching up with friends, getting the feeling back in the legs, and testing out my new Nitro Team Gullwing 159 board and Raiden Phantom bindings. I even had a couple of laps with The Bear Bristow and Jason Currie and his new Nitro-3CS collaboration Swindle 155 on Saturday. Somehow Jason managed to colour-co-ordinate his outerwear to his board’s base graphic. Take note, kids – that’s how the pro’s do it! Just like Travis Rice. And Mikey Rosalky was back at Falls during his university holidays, getting some backside rodeos on lock before he heads back for a semester of Law and Science.
Mat Galina was also back from Canada working in Falls’ parks, and managed to find a new feature to shoot that was a bit more reminiscent of surfing than snowboarding. It was quite difficult to know how to best light the spray of water with the limited infra-red flash triggers. In the shot I have put up, Mat’s bow wave blocked out the signal to one of the flashes. A couple other shots that I’m saving worked out better, but I’d also like to go back and get more creative with radio-triggered flashes and with more time to experiment.
So take a look at the shots from 2 days at Falls Creek…and if you hunt around the web, you will probably see some other shots of mine from the same trip. See the shots on Aust-NZ Snowboarder here.
RadMania 