Eat, drink and be merry, the ultimate event guide to the snow

Jump to it … there’s plenty on at the snow this season.

The Australian ski season is well under way and with the opening of Coronet Peak, Mt Hutt and Snowpark this week the New Zealand season is finally starting thanks to the wonders of man-made snow technology. Have faith our Kiwi cousins, we are all doing a snow dance for you.

2011 brings with it an event calendar that caters for everyone from apres-loving champagne quaffers to serious sports watchers. Celebrity chef Peter Evans is heading to Thredbo, Channel Nine launches an Australian ski and snowboard film, MTV Snow Jam heads to Mt Buller, Perisher launch their Playstation Night Slopestyle Series and Jimmy Blaze throws his snowmobile in the air at Hotham.

Snow It All thought it only appropriate to combine all these great event details in the one calendar, ours. We’ve listed them month by month with some New Zealand event highlights at the bottom.

July

2 – 3 – Liberty Skis demo days at Perisher.  Who would have thought you could make skis from bamboo without losing performance? Try before you buy.

2 – Junior Urban Pro, Mt Buller. Under 16 skiers and boarders battle it out in a slopestyle event on Bourke Street under lights.

9 -10 – Salomon Atomic demo days, Perisher.  A day to trial the latest skis and boards from Salomon and Atomic.

9 – Backcountry film festival, Mt Buller. This film festival celebrates the non-motorised snow sport known as the backcountry. If it’s off-piste, out the back and under your own steam, you’ll find it on celluloid here.

13 – Burton Learn to Ride clinic, Baw Baw. This free one-day clinic for snowboarders will take you from amateur to Shaun White in a day. 

16 – Burton Cattleman’s Rail Jam and MTV Snow Jam, Mt Buller. A fantastic spectator event in the village square. Sixteen world class pro-riders use the rails on the Cattleman’s staircase to stun the crowd and the MTV crew will be mixing the music.

16 – Chicks with Sticks, Hotham. Australia’s top freestyle female skiers offer their wealth of knowledge for nix. Hang with the lady posse and strut your stuff.

19 – Thredbo Freeride series, slopestyle. The Freeride Series is back for it’s fifth year with $50 000 of cash prizes for pro riders and skiers. The event features rails, slopestyle, rider x and the Rip Curl Freeride Pro and culminates with a Grand Final in September.

23 – Rossignol ladies day, Mt Buller.  July 23 is officially all about the ladies at Mt Buller with Rossignol ski clinics, ski demonstations and more.

23 – 24 – SkiMag Demo days, Thredbo. The theory is simple, get change from $20 and pay for a ticket then demo as many skis as you like all day. The set up is slopeside at the base of the Supertrail so think of it as a Grand Prix pit stop and the ski and snowboard reps your pit crew.

23 – Playstation Night Slopestyle series, Perisher. This is big, really big. The first of a three-part nighttime slopestyle series for snowboarders and skiers under lights.

23 – Pea Brain Soup Big Air, Hotham. Test your mental fortitude and leave the ground behind on Hotham’s Big Air jump.

23 – Chicks with Sticks, Mt Buller. More free freeride ski training from Australia’s best female athletes. Girls only, boys have germs.

24 – The Show on Channel Nine. Finally, a quality production featuring Australia’s elite skiers and snowboarders doing what they do best at home and abroad. The one-hour special features the stunning work of superstar cinematographer Rob Norman who leads a team of Australia’s best behind-the-lens filmmakers including Chris Hocking, Dominic Sullivan, Martin Bourke and executive producer Tim Myers who is the brains behind the project.

29 – 30 – The Age corporate ski race, Falls Creek. Grab your work colleagues, slap them on some skis and push them through the gates and down the race track. Why? Because you want their job. A fun weekend filled with corporate frivolity, an awards dinner akin to Friday night drinks on steroids and kudos when you beat your company competitors.

29 – 31 – Pete Evans and Two Chefs at the Denman, Thredbo. Celebrity chef from My Kitchen Rules, Peter Evans, shares the stove at The Denman Hotel for a culinary weekend of degustation dining, canapes and cocktails.

30 – Dew Hut Jam, Mt Buller. Picture a purpose-built hut, picture it on snow under lights then add pro snowboarder teams who jib and shred their way through a course of snow and said hut.

30 and 31 – Tube My Ride, Perisher. Fancy yourself a movie star? Try your riding luck on Perisher’s slopestyle course or Superpipe, capture it on film, add some pizazz in the edit and hand it over for some serious prizes. 2011 competition officially opens on July 30.

August

1 – 7 – Clicquot at the Snow, Thredbo. This bubbly week-long event started in Aspen. Now in it’s second year at Thredbo, expect champagne and lots of it with snow picnics, apres parties, degustation dinners and long mountain lunches.

6th – Top to bottom race, Thredbo. Anyone can enter this annual event and there are open, age and gender sections for skiers and snowboarders with $18 000 of prize money.

6th – FIS ANC Boarder X weekend, Hotham. The world’s best boarder x athletes descent upon Mt Hotham for some serious elite level racing.

6th – SkiMag demo weekend, Hotham. See July 23 for the low down then move it to Hotham.

13 – Advance sled dog challenge, Hotham – Seventy five ‘mushers’ put three hundred and fifty husky sled dogs through their paces on the dog sled tracks of Dinner Plain.

13 – Chicks with Sticks, Thredbo. They are back, this time in Thredbo. Free female freeride ski clinic.

15 – FIS ANZ Alpine Cup, Hotham. The Southern Hemisphere’s best ski racers test their metal in Slalom and Giant Slalom.

16 – 18 – RipCurl Freeride Pro. An annual event that uses Thredbo’s natural elements off the Bluff to test riders skills.

20 – Playstation night slopestyle series, Perisher.  The series continues under lights with the second of three events.

20 – FIS ANC Skier X weekend, Hotham. Now it’s the skier’s turn as the world’s best skier x athletes turn it on for the FIS.

21 – Chicks with Sticks, Perisher. Gosh these girls are everywhere! Now it’s Perisher’s turn.

21 – 24 – Stylewars, Falls Creek. Stylewars has thrown the competition open to all contenders this year who will compete alongside an international team of snowboarders who take to the terrain park to show off.

21 – 27 Charlotte Pass Winter Festival. A week of great family fun, fireworks, bbqs, parties and play.

23 – 24 – Liberty Skis demo, Thredbo. More demos of the bamboo ski revolution. Try before you buy.

24 – Amelia McGuinness Memorial Cup and auction, Perisher. In memory of 16-year-old Amelia McGuiness who lost her life skiing two years ago. Money raised goes to the Amelia McGuinness Snowsports Foundation that awards scholarships to promising your snow sports athletes.

27 – Kangaroo Hoppett, Falls Creek. If you’re into cross country skiing then you don’t get bigger than this.

27 – ABOM Mogul Challenge, Mt Buller. This is about bumps, big bumps and the people whose knees can take it. Think Britteny Cox and Dale Begg Smith and you’ve got it.

September

1- Jimmy Blaze Extreme Snowmobiling tour, Hotham. Jimmy can do things with a snowmobile that should be illegal. A truly spectacular event that will leave your jaw dropped for a week.

3 – Freeride series grand final, Thredbo. The culmination of the season’s freeride series.

3 – Eighties day, Mt Buller. Go on, you know you want to. One pieces, fluoros, big hair, sweat head bands and pastels.

6 – 10 One Hit Wonder Down Under, Thredbo. Last year big name skier, Bobby Brown, made the journey to throw himself off the largest Big Air jump in the Southern Hemisphere. The rumour mill is buzzing with the next big name for 2011.

10 – 17 – Spring Carnival, Perisher. A celebration of spring skiing with complete madcap craziness. What is it about spring skiing that inspires dress up?

10 – Peak Pics, Mt Buller. Enter your mountain photos and win.

17 – Grand Final Playstation slopestyle series, Perisher. the decider of the winter series.

New Zealand event highlights

The 100% Pure New Zealand Winter Games are on from August 13 to 28. This ‘mini Olympics’ features Winter Olympic medallists, World Cup Champions and Aspen X Games winners competing in their chosen disciplines from halfpipe to giant slalom, ice skating, hockey, big air, slopestyle and more. If you want to see the world’s best in action, this is where you will find them this winter.

The Volkl New Zealand Free Ski Open – International names compete in three disciplines, slopestyle, halfpipe and big mountain heli day. This year’s event launches on September 1.

The Burton New Zealand Open, slopestyle and halfpipe August 12 to 13. Big names and big things usually happen at this event which is part of the global Burton open series. This event held at Cardrona is where Shaun White performed his back to back double cork, a world first.

Do you have an event you’d like to add to our list? What events are you planning to be part of this winter? Post a comment on our blog below.

PRIZE WINNER!

Drum roll please. After sorting through hundreds and hundreds of heartfelt emails, Facebook posts of crying baby videos and hilarious Twitter entries to our Luxury ski trip to Queenstown competition, our judges finally found a winner. Congratulations to Sascha Hartmann from Melbourne who will be winging her way to Queenstown with Expedia.com.au, driving around thanks to Europcar, sleeping over at the luxury Kewarau Hotel managed by Hilton, kitted out thanks to Browns Ski Shop, skiing at Cardrona and Coronet Peak, dining at The Bunker and jetboating with Shotover Jet.

If you missed out on this prize, we have another awesome prize giveaway in July.

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