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Although nothing can beat the sound of the radial engine on a beaver.

I am spending a few days in Queenstown, NZ. First of all, this place is just stunning... Spent the last two days at The Remarkables which is a fun 'little/big' mountain. It is weird as the vertical is similar to Blue but skis much bigger, but all does not have a lot accessible steep terrain. All of the steeper terrain is off piste. Due to light coverage I stayed away except the heavier travels area. Overall a fun place to spend a day, but could see during a good winter this place would be really fun. Lastly, the drive up may have been more exciting than the mountain itself... Crazy windy 13 km road with the last 3km gravel. A few pics below..at add some others later

Posted up at the Blakeslee Wawa. Just gonna eat here. Not walking out in deluge

I like to use this once the rounds are split in half.

Cool turbo prop beaver float plane.. Tahoe sunset...

Beautiful golf weather yesterday. Bay Creek Golf Club in Cape Charles VA, parents are building a house/retiring here. Hoping the old man gets the golf membership, the views alone are worth it.

Currently on my flight from Sydney to San Fran... Found this picture which shows the uniqueness of the NZ ski fields. They say they get very little snow in the valley and the snow level is typically quite high in the mountains. In this picture of you zoom into the bottom of the V of the snow line ... That is the base of the Remarkables resort. Quite the drive to get up there ..

.. and well .. I had not ventured up the final lift until today as it is an old fixed grip lift. I guess that should have told me it was the fun part of the mountain. You are dropped off inside an upper mountain bowl with options everywhere (albeit a lot with thin cover). The slopes were a lot more fun and much less crowded.

A bunch of us were at it again over in New Joisey to celebrate Slim's birthday... We got grief from some park rats who didn't like us taking over the side of the park that they don't even use anyway, but they didn't have much to say after they realized there we like 16 of us. "Yous guys do rails? Nope, just ski bumps!" Punks... Some stills from Slim's video. Even Masa was out after suffering an achilles tear at the end of last season.

Glad to see Masa back at it, I think his tear was the day I saw him at Belle

Been a while since I've been up to this. Also I've visited pretty much everything in a day's driving distance. Got up to MA last fall and checked out what remains of Mt. Tom.

What remains of the oldest ski area in New Jersey. Craigmeur opened in 1937 and offered Jersey skiers a place to learn for sixty years before closing in 1997. Some cool relics remain including an old snowcat, rope tows and a very 70s looking sign in the woods. This was one of the last small beginner operations in the region to close.

Here's the video of Tuxedo Ridge. Ton of stuff left behind. The owners look like they just walked away six years ago. There's some great retro ski lifts if you're into that sort of thing. Two old Borvig double chairs and a very cool early 60s Poma double chair.