JORDAN AGNEW
GEORGE PENGELLY
IMAGE BY MARK BRIDGWATER
IMAGE BY RILEY BATHURST
Sometimes photos just scream out to be taken. We were on the way out of the Mingha Valley after losing our light for the day, heading back to the lodge for a cold beer when one of those occasions struck me. The sun behind Mt Temple had illuminated a perfect pad of powder as shadows filled the rest of the valley. I called the boys back and described the shot I wanted. Jordan Agnew stepped up and exploded the snow with a powerful turn right on the precipice of a 30-footer.
Maybe once a year or once every two years, the snow comes in low enough that Castle Hill comes into play. Nestled right below the ski fields, it’s one of those places that gets overlooked on the way to a powder day. Occasionally everything lines up but unfortunately the place is mostly dead flat or 100 ft cliffs, so finding a happy medium takes a curious eye. George has more than that eye, and the talent to adapt a trick to the feature, plus the work ethic to throw try after try.
Location: Temple Basin, New Zealand.
Location: Castle Hill, New Zealand.
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Opinion. Words by Sam Lee
ANIMAL INSTINCTS
Image by Tero Repo
INSIDE THE MIND OF THE IBEX
As the dust settled after a turbulent year on the FWQ circuit and points were tallied, Sam Lee got the greatest email any aspiring freerider could receive: an invite to the 2017 Freeride World Tour. We caught up with NZ’s newest member of the FWT club to ask what goes through his mind when he views a face for the first time. If you’re not familiar with the Ibex’s creative skiing and route finding, prepare to be captivated. The guy could find a line in a circle.
When I switched to Big Mountain I sort of just skied slalom through rocks, and spent a lot of time picking through tight craggy zones and hopping down steep snow pads. It took a little more focus to get into skiing big cliffs. I was a billy goat kid who arrived a little late for the 80’s extreme ski scene. Because of that billy goat style, Neil Williman gave me the nickname ‘Ibex’, which came about while watching the Nubian Ibex in the Mammals segment of David Attenborough’s ‘Life’ on a down day at the 2010 Whakapapa Xtremes.
Freeride is a sport of pushing limits and getting weird. It’s sport filled with thrill seekers, optimists and creative minds; a group of people who can look at gravel and see gold.
When it comes time to put a comp line together this is my approach: The first things I look for are the main big cliffs as well as the features that I think will get a lot of traffic - I like to get a gauge on the size of everything as early as I can.
When it comes to picking awesome competition lines, skiing mach ten off the biggest cliffs on the face is usually what comes to mind. However in my eyes, the greatest runs are usually those that get a little weird and confuse the spectators.
Then I start to search for the cliffs with more difficult entries, which often involves looking at the exposed, seemingly impassable areas to see if there is a way through.
I consider Geoff Small’s winning run at the 2009 NZ Open and Sam Smoothy’s winning line at Vallnord Arcalis in the 2015 Freeride World Tour, to be the two most inspiring and memorable runs I have ever seen.
Usually pretty quickly something will catch my eye and instantly become my favourite feature on the face.
They were the kind of runs that have you asking “where the hell is he going?!” Technical as hell and creative beyond measure, they required excellent ski technique and massive legumes.
As well as skiing technical stuff, I have been working hard over the last few years to bump up my big cliff game, which I have always considered to be my weakest point.
I am really into the technical, creative side of Freeride, so when I ski I always try to pick the weirdest lines I can.
When technical zones are done quickly and fluidly they can act as a point of difference to other’s runs, but on some venues it doesn’t make sense to ski tech, and you just have to send it.
I think that a lot of my love for that style of skiing comes from my background in ski racing where my strongest discipline was slalom.
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Travel. Words by Tori Beattie. Images by Cam McDermid.
ZEN AND THE ART OF TRAVEL LETTING GO IN JAPAN
“A GOOD TRAVELER HAS NO FIXED PLANS, AND IS NOT INTENT ON ARRIVING.” - LAOZI We stood in a circle cupping our hands around small ceramic mugs of tea. Smiles and nods our sole form of communication; we smiled and nodded. At our backs frozen waves surged and hissed as they dragged frozen pebbles from a frozen beach. Inhale. Exhale. Pause. The heartbeat of Japan. Before us stood two weathered faces. In their smiling eyes shone generosity and curiosity, humility and servitude, understanding and incomprehension. All at once. A window into the soul of a culture that values social conformity as the hallmark of a tempered inner strength. There’s an old Japanese proverb which states “the nail that sticks out will be hammered down.” We’d made it a daily effort to keep a low profile and simply observe the natural course of things as we travelled around here, but as four giggling gaijins in a tiny moustachioed van it was at times not easy. Our intention however was always to not interfere. On this day we had driven to the coast in search of something: exactly what, we didn’t know. Just a week into our trip we’d already sensed that the best plan to have here was no plan at all; that the discovery lay in the seeking. Whether consciously or not, we had each chosen to just let go and surrender to the experience. Surrender to that undeniable Zen of Japan.
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