July 7, 2005 – Nestled between the Tasman Sea and the South Pacific lies a cluster of islands whose total area is just 268 680kms, but whose ecosystem is absolutely extraordinary. Picture this, within these islands one can find a plethora of adventures; anything from world class fly fishing, to massive bungy jumps, surfing, beach bummin’ and of course… world class ski trails all within a day’s drive. It’s such an extreme environment that the tree line down under is a mere 600m (opposed to the 2000m tree line of Canada) and before people arrived, there were no mammals let alone predators that existed on the islands. What are these magical islands? New Zealand of course!! To set the scene a bit, let’s imagine two (although there are many more) large islands way down in the southern hemisphere whose total area (as mentioned above) is roughly three times smaller than where I reside, Sunny (slash rainy, floody, disaster ridden June) Alberta. Believe it baby, New Zealand simply rocks. I am one lucky dude too, because this will be my third time to one of the furthest places from Canada that you could travel, and my second time to rock out some world class training.

As stated above, in three short days I will be on a plane heading down under. I am super pumped to put down some big kilometres on snow and am busy preparing my equipment for the journey. Today for example, I was waxing a few pairs of skis on my deck in 30 C!! Even though I have done this for years (mostly for Glacier ski camps), the average joe that walks by my back deck is always there with a funny look and the odd, “going skiing somewhere?” No, just gettin’ ready to water-ski behind Jeffries’ Volvo along the spillway… Here’s your sign. Seriously though, our team’s destination, the one and only cross country ski center in all of New Zealand, is aptly named “The Snow Farm. It sounds like a funny name, but when you get there, you realize how it got it’s name. For one, up on the plateau there’s oodles of natural snow around, and secondly the great snow making infrastructure one can see everywhere around the roughly 50kms of perfect trails. Although the stadium doesn’t boast a 1.5m snow depth around a 800m loop (sorry old Canmore Nordic Center, couldn’t help the burn), the evenly spaced artificial snow mixed with natural snow leads to kilometres and kilometres of great skiing. As indicated above, if you are have packed some cross country skis and heading to New Zealand, The Snow Farm is all you got, but not to worry because it’s massive. Approximately 50kms of trails awaits for your skiing pleasure, just down the road a massive terrain park chills out, and on the other side of the trails lies a winter automobile testing mega center. There are six centers littered throughout the world, but the Snow Farm is the only one where you can test winter tires, cars etc… in the summer! That’s right geography buffs, New Zealand is in the southern hemisphere, and therefore our summer is there winter. For those Canmorites, it will be around the same temperature there as here, except at 1.7 C, it will be snowing instead of the day 16 of rain we are used to this past month. It’s a truly amazing sight, and you really have to see it to believe it (if the sound of a car testing center throws you off, don’t worry. When you are out in the back forty you can’t hear anything except your laboured breath, and even in the places where the testing tracks are close to the trails, it’s not that loud, and let’s be honest, kind of cool to see a sweet Audi rip around an ice track and smoke a snow bank).

This next bit will sound like a plug for the Snow Farm, but take my word for it. New Zealand is definitely one of the nicest places I have ever skied in the world. It’s as beautiful as a sunny ski in the Engadine Valley of Switzerland, as perfectly groomed as the high passes of Italy, and as serene as a solo ski up in (when there’s snow, and groomed) Lake Louise, or the Canmore Nordic Center. It’s also a perfect training environment for an elite athlete, and probably even more of a perfect setting for the elite athlete’s coach. You are perched up on a plateau at 1400m, a 10km gravel road separates you from any semblance of society (in this case a deserted highway), and in our case, the coaches hold the car keys. This transfers into minimal distractions: i.e. no partying, no climbing, no Bagel Co. no fly fishing (well, maybe a little in Wanaka during the odd afternoon or day off) and no buddies dropping by. That’s perfectly fine with me, if I am going to last through three weeks of heavy volume that is the only way. Although most of the day involves skiing, eating, sleeping, stretching, and Susan’s “death to hips” physio exercises, there is still a little time for fun. It’s inevitable that a chess match will be fired up, a steamy match of darts launched, and hopefully some Tour De France viewing (it’s Lance’s last and I am a huge fan… It would be a crime if my dad (who I started watching the Tour with back in elementary school) got to watch it all and I didn’t…). I am convinced that no where else on earth can you have such perfect skiing in the summer, and at a low enough elevation to crank out some high intensity work as well. This coupled with great people, sweet food, the funky town of Wanaka (25 minutes away), a mean ass bungy jump close by, trout filled streams, and kiwis (people, food, and little furry bird included) make New Zealand a winner.

What can I say, I love it there. I am so happy to get the opportunity to travel the world with my buddies, to work hard and to come back to Canada in boss shape with a few extra kms under my belt before I head into my first Olympic Winter Games! Get out there and giv’er.