I’m in Christchurch, NZ ready to fly home via ZQN, CHC, AKL, LAX, SFO, LAX, ORD, and then finally MHT on Tuesday. Hopefully someone will realize flying from L.A. to San Fran and back isn’t all that logical, but when it’s the cheapest flight it’s the cheapest fight.

The last 24 hours has been pretty hectic with Frencie, short for Francesco the other athlete I’m traveling with, coming over a blind roll free skiing GS and hit a snowboarder who was bent over fixing her binding. It looks like he tore his PCL and MCL in one leg and possibly a partial tear to his PCL in his other leg along with some serious bruising to his tib fib. He had an X-ray yesterday and luckily he didn’t break any bones. Since it’s so difficult to get an MRI down under, he’s going to wait until he flys home in two days. I took him to therapy today and it's already starting to come along. With both legs banged up he has a constant struggle walking even with crutches, which is pretty entertaining to watch and he’s in good spirits about it. The US Team doctor checked him out and said he was really lucky and could be up and running again in 6-8 weeks. In most cases, the PCL and MCL repair themselves without surgery.

The lady he hit had to get air lifted out because she was loosing blood pressure after the collision and potentially damaged her kidney. I didn't see accident, but I guess he hit her really hard. In the first aid head quarters she was fully coherent and even laughing with her friends.

After that, we – not so much Frenchie – did the annual New Zealand car rally. Last week, a waitress at a restaurant in Wanaka told us that if we could start her car we could have it. So we drove two hours to where she left “Sweet Caroline” and with only a pair of jumper cables she was back from the dead. So most of the ski team guys and a few locals hit a pretty impressive kicker that Jimmy Cochran built. It was a nice end to a long camp of tough weather and a rugged day on the hill.

Now that the camp is over, I’m really excited to get home and dial in a few things before my next time on snow in Chile with Stratton Mountain School. I want to flatten out my boots a little bit – right now they’re a little warped – and I’d like to grind down my boot board and try using some medium/hard foam to ease into the turn more smoothly. I’ve been talking to Dane about it quite a bit and I’m psyched to dial it in. Before he and Schlopy used soft foam to initiate turns on their down hill ski, but we’d like to make it so they work for the inside ski as well.

All and all, working with Thomas Erhard and Apex was a great opportunity and I definitely got a ton out of our 15 days on snow in New Zealand. I’m getting faster and with another two weeks on snow in Chile I will be ready.

Hope all is well, w