Jit’s Journal: Whodunnit Down Under?

The new season is under way in the Southern Hemisphere as I find myself in the wonderland that is New Zealand. After some 15 hours of flight time, a couple movies and several security inspections, I stepped off the plane in Queenstown and back into winter — or so I thought.
THE NEW SEASON is under way in the Southern Hemisphere as I find myself in the wonderland that is New Zealand. After some 15 hours of flight time, a couple movies and several security inspections, I stepped off the plane in Queenstown and back into winter — or so I thought.
    The first morning back on snow had the entire team skiing in the dark for an extremely early morning of freeskiing; and by early I mean 5 a.m. Under the lights, we could see stars and a crescent moon while we utilized our feeling of touch on the skis to make it down the hill under the lights and through the dark spots to the bottom of Coronet Peak. It was definitely an interesting way to return to snow after our time away, but it was a good feeling to once again be back doing what we love to do.
    The next morning was early again. We made the hour drive from Queenstown to Treble Cone, where the Austrians are training, in the hopes of getting some freeskiing in a different spot to change things up a little before we got settled into our program over in Coronet Peak. We again had to make the best out some tough conditions, as were found ourselves both dodging the public and the occasional rocks.
    However, Treble Cone turned out to be harsher than first expected. When we returned to our cars to leave, we found two vehicles had their tires slashed. None of us could really believe it, but it was definitely a clear knife cut into the tires. Who did it remains a mystery. The interesting thing was, as the tires got replaced with new ones, a group of parrot-looking vultures native to the area crowded around, mocking us. These vultures are mean and have been known to eat the rubber off windshield wipers. Something tells me they knew who did it.
    The first two days came and went as they had been planned; and then it started to rain. For the next three days, it rained without letting up. Each day, we woke up and by the time we made it to the front door to leave, we got the call to go to back to bed. The entire mountain at Coronet was shut down because it was raining so hard. The snow, which was so sparse to begin with, began to melt away before we really had a chance to even ski on it.
    There is nothing tougher than preparing to do a job and when you’re finally ready to do it, be forced to sit. It’s not often I hear a ski technician wishing he had more stuff to do, but after sitting though a three-day downpour watching all the movies that you had set aside for the actual upcoming ski season, I guess I can understand. As a team, we played volleyball and soccer to stay fresh, while some people took the opportunity to go bungee jumping. You could sense that as a group, the team was really getting restless.
    Finally, on the third night it got freezing cold. Water turned to ice and snow, and when we woke up the next morning, we found ourselves back in business. Till next time ….

— Jit