THE PATH IS SET

My last day skiing in New Zealand was super fun. I spent my morning park skiing with Ben (aka Benni) and Luca Harrington,  just having fun working on some spins and flips. One thing I really wanted to do was hit the big air but had never found the time to hit it. Now because it was the last day I had run out of time, so Luca offered to tow me in on it. Hitting the big air was not as scary asI had anticipated. On the outside, the jump looked massive(an 80-foot gap), but after hitting it I realized it was just like every other jump I have hit. I hit the jump a couple more times and then my dad decided he was also a16 yr old and wanted to do the jump as well (against my better judgment). Sending the big air with my dad was a really cool experience, however, he could definitely work on his steez, although it was decent for a 48 yr old. Watch Video Here 

In the arvo, I participated in a ski/bike race, which involved me Chinese downhilling as fast as I could, racing against 40-50 other crazy individuals,  to my bike while having to hit different challenges. Such challenges included inhaling weetbix, demolishing a cold meat pie, commando crawling with skis under a net… you get the picture. Once I got to my bike I was exhausted and in pain regretting my decisions. I now had to gun it through snow and mud to the Cardrona pub where the finish line was. I ended up having a really good race finishing in 3rd place, which was a super awesome feeling especially because I was the youngest in the men's category.

So overall my last day on the mountain was super fun but I needed at least a week to recover! 

Fast forward a couple of weeks and I'm off the snow and riding my Devinci Wilson down-hill mountain bike in Rotorua for Crankworx. Ever since I can remember I have watched the pros race Crankworx and I had always wanted to be like them and race the event. I finally had the opportunity to race downhill at Crankworx and didn't think twice to sign up. My experience in Rotorua was really good and I had a ton of fun riding the same track as my role models such as Brook Macdonald. The first day turned out to be a bit of a disaster. My first run involved knee-deepmud, then I noticed my tire was completely flat, so I took my bike in to be fixed. In the first place, I had no idea how to fix a wheel that wasn't holding air. I decided to take it to another shop to see if they could actually fix my bike. After all the shenanigans fixing my bike I only got one run in since it was late at night once we figured out what the issue was.

My second day at Crankworx went 20x better than my first. The track wasn't a mud bath and my bike was performing flawlessly. I perfected my lines and even met a few more fast riders to challenge my skills and improve my lines.

Race day didn't quite go as I would have liked, unfortunately. It started really well with me seeing super quick speed from my riding but I was maybe riding a bit too much over my limit and had some heavy crashes in my training runs. But on my last practice run, I placed a top to bottom run that I was super pleased with. My race run however went a bit like this, I started off really strongand rode my line exactly how I had planned until I got to the technical area I had been struggling with the entire week.  I was hauling ass into this very difficult section of trail, full of drops and large roots when I got crossed up on a root and ended up flying over the handlebars and really hurting my hip.  But I hadn't noticed my hip yet. I got up as quickly as a man could after chuckinghimself off a drop into a stump going too fast. I made it down the rest of my run with good speed but wasn't pleased to see my time, I then noticed that I could hardly walk and I had a large contusion on my hip where I had landed on it. For the next week, I hobbled around like an 80 yr old man.

In the couple days leading up to me flying to the Northern hemisphere, I was super stoked to be going to Hawaii for a quick stopover and some vitamin D loading, with my super good friend Benni. To narrow the three days down to a single highlight is near impossible as it was some of the most fun I have ever had, but if I had to bring it down to one moment it would be cliff jumping off the side of the highway in this super secret exclusive spot that my local life long friend Hoku brought us to. 

To go from 30-degree celsius weather with sunshine and blue skies to negative 20 with windchill was a brutal shock to my system. My week at Big Sky was extremely cold but really good training. I had giant slalom training on the first three days of the camp which was just trying to get used to the sticks again but was great. For the rest of the 3 days, I was on slalom skis doing drills and some mini-courses warming up the quick feet. Overall, the Big sky camp was an amazing experience and I learnt a ton.

My December is looking quite busy as I am heading up for another training camp in Panorama British Columbia in Canada from the 1-6th of January. In this training camp I will be working on GS(speeds up to 80km/h) and Super-G(speeds up to 100Kmh) which I'm super excited about. 

I then go on to Calgary with the Evolve ski cross team and train with them from the 7th-14th of January. This is my first ski cross camp which I am super stoked about as this is the specialty that excites me.   I'm aiming for the Junior World Champs in Ski Cross in March 2023 in Italy!

After my ski cross camp, I am doing my first ski cross race in Nakiska on the 18th of December. This will be an opportunity for me to really throw myself into the world of ski cross. I'm super pumped and excited to see how I go.

With the snow already here in full force, and with more on the way I am super excited to have a white Christmas with my entire family here in Idaho USA.  Super special as this hasn't happened since 2016.

Look out for my next update on 1 January, give me a follow on Instagram, and thanks for all your support.