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Armada in NZ Part III

Armada in NZ Part III

Words and Photos by OC

Finally it all went down at Snowpark, NZ.

After a few days warming up around Wanaka, the team made it to the best park in the southern hemi and possibly the best park in the world.

Snowpark is an all park mountain located in the Cadrona Valley, just outside Wanaka that happens to be open from June through October with just about every feature you could dream of. With one quad lift and around 60 acres of terrain, it’s simple and to the point, with a great scene and friendly Kiwi Vibe.

Sam Lee was the visionary for the Snowpark Project and after 5 years it has become the premier Southern Hemishpere freestyle destination. The Armada team has been calling Snowpark home in for the months of July through September since 2003. Home to more ski cover shots in recent years than any other location in Southern Hemi, Snowpark can make the magic happen, mostly because of the owner’s passion for skiing.

“We love having the Armada team down here, we support what they are doing 100 percent. It’s great to work with Armada and the athletes have become good friends” comments Sam on having the team back again. He’s probably excited they are back so that he can take their money at poker nights at the Armada Distributor Jason Woolf’s house.

The pipe is open to the public daily and is cut by the man himself Frank Wells. Frank is an ex pro snowboarder who cuts the X Games pipe and pretty much every other epic pipe in the world. Frank puts his touch on the pipe every night, so that shredders from all over the world can ride the consistently best pipe in the world.

Snowpark also made a 10 meter tall hand dug quarter pipe for the team and Tanner Hall went ballistic on it, throwing some monster super stylie 540s. JP pulled some epic hand plants at sunset as well.

Jacob and TJ were on fire and had the usual cases of ADD. Not being able to sit still, they skied every day except for one. TJ was rocking hand drag 360s off jumps and Jacob went richter on the bottom jump in the park.

One of the highlights of the trip was watching TJ Schiller cook dinner for a few girls that he imported from the UK. He cooked us all a wonderful Orzo and made a salad and it was good. TJ can for sure fall back on his cooking skills if he ever decides not to ski.

So there you have it from New Zealand, the team has all landed back at their homes in Europe and North America and we are already missing our summertime home, but winter is ramping up and the snow is falling.

Oh yeah, did we mentioned JP scored epic empty barrels the day after we left?
That bastard!

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