Riding Cardrona and watching the Burton New Zealand Open

Today definitely ranked in up in the top 10 of most epic days, like... ever!
It was good weather. No rain, but not too sunny, which saved me from getting burnt by this crazy NZ sun. The snow was a little hard, but fast and it was good.
Riding at Cardrona with sick. They still had the Slope Style course set up from yesterday's competition so getting to ride that was like... really fun and amazing.

And the mountain was big. I didn't have time to get everywhere beeeeeecause I was too busy watching the Burton New Zealand Open Half Pipe competition, which was so freakin' rad!

All the best riders in the world were there. The event was huge and the pipe was massive. The walls were 22 ft. tall and the pipe was 150 meters long.

and then, I got to meet Shaun White, THE BEST snowboarder in the world.

And he's super nice! I was on a flight with his mom and sister once, when they were on their way to see him ride at the Olympics in Torino and they are also super nice. I don't know why, but I always felt like after meeting them, that someday I would get to meet Shaun and then today, I did. I've literally had dreams about it, not that I'm obsessed or anything. But he is just such a freakin' legend. He can always find a way to step up his game. Today after the first round of the finals he was like 4 or 5 points down, and then he just came with it and busted some sick shit that nobody has ever done in competition before, back to back cork 1080's. Freakin' siiiiick. Here's his winning run. It's not a very good vid but you get the idea.

And I had so much fun taking pictures today! Those guys were getting so_much_air!



And they were busting huge tricks.

Some of the girls were even throwing down 900's. It was so sick.



And big ups to Burton for awarding equal prize money to the guys and the girls. Even though I have to admit that watching the guys is way more exciting than watching the girls. There is just a totally different level on insanity.


AND today I also got to hang out with the boys with the big cameras, which was totally awesome.

I had a super sweet spot to watch the comp. and all these professional photographers and film crews kept showing up.

Chatting with those guys was really cool. Talk about having a crazy and interesting life! And with my California accent they all just assumed I was here one of the riders so everyone was really nice to me. And the whole thing was just so random... that I happened to be here for all of this.

so cool. such a good day.