Burton High Fives: New Zealand

by | Nov 14, 2014 | Articles, Photos, Snow

Words & Photos: Cat Nicol

This is by far one of my favorite events of the season in New Zealand. Every year this event kicks off at one of New Zealand’s all time best freestyle mountain, Cardrona. This time it was the third annual that Burton High Fives presented by MINI has been hosted at this awesome, friendly mountain. This competition brings together 60 of the world’s top pro and rookie riders from all over the world, competing in both, the world-class Slopestyle and Halfpipe. This six day invitational event has quite an inspiring challenge to the riders as they have to do off snow activities as well on snow. They are all sorted into mixed teams and have to pass all the challenges and gain points. The team who has gained the most points overall wins a big sum of $70k splitting it evenly to all the team members.

burton high fives

We had such an awesome crew helping out at this year’s event and we all seemed to get the job done! Getting up at 5am was a struggle to start with but that means smashing through early hours of putting up sponsor flags, fencing and banners and more time to chillax in the afternoon.
The first main competition day was the Slopestyle that kicked off on Friday the 19th of September. We were all set to go on the day of the competition and most of us volunteers had positions to stand to marshal the course. The weather is always hard to predict in New Zealand so we were all on stand by in case the weather suddenly turned on us…luckily it didn’t.
Top of start eft to right; Caitlin Hodgen, Alexe Patenaude, Cammy Craighead &Cat Nicol

Top of start
Left to right; Caitlin Hodgen, Alexe Patenaude, Cammy Craighead &Cat Nicol

high2

Cat posing by the Burton High Fives Mini…typical!
The last and final day of the competition was the Halfpipe that kicked off on Saturday the 20th of September. All of us again were hands on for the last day with marshaling the course and slipping the half-pipe every few runs to get it evenly on both transitions to make it easier for the riders to drop in.
22ft Superpipe at Cardrona Resort...would you want to drop into this?!

22ft Superpipe at Cardrona Resort…would you want to drop into this?!

Catching up with the riders

Fortunately we managed to catch up with the stars of the event. Yeeooowww!!

TUB Rep Cat Nicol taking a selfie with Pro rider Chloe Kim who came 1st place in Halfpipe scoring an overall result of 92.60...yeah gurl!

TUB Rep Cat Nicol taking a selfie with Pro rider Chloe Kim who came 1st place in Halfpipe scoring an overall result of 92.60…yeah gurl!

Catching up with NZ Pro rider Christy Prior who came 3rd place in the Slopestyle with an overall score of 86.80 with Cat Nicol and Cayley Alger...meean as!

Catching up with NZ Pro rider Christy Prior who came 3rd place in the Slopestyle with an overall score of 86.80 with Cat Nicol and Cayley Alger…meean as!

Yeah Sierra Dream Team Halfpipe rider Aspen Robinson, TUB Rep Cat Nicol and Olympic Gold Medalist Jamie Anderson

Yeah Sierra Dream Team
Halfpipe rider Aspen Robinson, TUB Rep Cat Nicol and Olympic Gold Medalist Jamie Anderson

The Burton High Fives was such a blast this year. I can’t think what else to say other than we had a rad crew helping out at the event plus seeing all the stoke levels from everyone all through the week was what made it worth while!
Thanks Burton High Fives/Cardrona Resort/ The Crew/ The Riders for all putting on a good show and keeping it real..as always ;)!!
The Burton High Fives Crew 2014 - Hopefully see you all back next year!!

The Burton High Fives Crew 2014 – Hopefully see you all back next year!!