Back to Tree Trunk

-In the car park gearing up - Photo Josh Neilson

Almost 2 years to the day from my last mission to Tree Trunk I found myself standing on the bridge again scouting the lines! This time we had a team of 6 keen to fire it up! As this is such a sick place for footage and photos and a pretty difficult place to run safety we decided to split into two groups and 3 go first and the others runs saftey and media and then swap round.

-Setting up safety in the gorge - Photo Will Martin

Once we had scouted from every possible angle Brendan, Trent and I geared up and headed to the top. With the flows looking rather burely B and I opted for the seal launch entry while Trent ran the guts. Ask him about how this went down...!

-Trent Garnham firing up the crux - Photo Will Martin

-Brendan Bayly going first on the biggy - Photo Tyler Fox

At the top on the big one we circled round a few times before B rolled off the drop..... Boom....."yeaaaahhhooooo" (muffled by the sound of rushing water) and we guess he made it good!

-Trent following suit - Photo Tyler Fox

Next up was Trent... BOOM(even bigger sound)... and another cheer which signaled my time to roll of the sweetest lip into the canyon. about 30ft of freefall then a 10ft reconnection and into the pool!

-Josh Neilson rolling off the big one, with the coolest view! - Photo Will Martin

-Josh from above - Photo Tyler Fox

In the middle of it we re gathered and Safety and photos moved down to the next drop for us. As the light came out it lit up the last drop perfectly as B boofed off (if you want to see the shot of this you will have to ask Tyler really nicely or keep a look out in the Mags as it was the shot of the day!), Another cheer from below and Trent and I followed suit till we were making our way out of the slot canyon in one piece! Stoked to have made it through again!
-Josh getting air on the bottom drop of the gorge - Photo Tyler Fox


With a bit of bush bashing we made it back to the car to fire up the next group and get in place for safety and footage. Sophie opted to coordinate the safety side of things in the gorge and due to a recent broken back Ryan was behind the lens. Soph tied Ryan and I in and we hung off to gorge wall to get in position for shots while the others set up above. With a quick game of paper, scissors, rock deciding that Tyler would go first we gave the signal and he was off. In the same fashion as our run Tyler, Sanga and Wils all had sweet runs and made it out!

-Will taking the sickest line of the day - Photo Ryan Lucas

-Wils with a hole in the chin! The best type of battle scars! - Photo Josh Neilson

Unfortunalty somewhere in Wills perfect line off the big one he managed to connect with his paddle and come out with a hole in his chin!
So with everyone back in the carpark safe and excited we peered over the shots from the day and shared all the stories of epic landings and airborne time in the gorge. With the gear loaded ther was just one last thing to do... in true athlete form we headed to Turangi Burger King to re-fuel the bodies before we went our separate ways for a bit. I am back in the bay for a few days, B and Soph headed South for a few days and the rest of the crew headed back to Okawa Bay for some more Kaituna action. Cheers everyone for a super sick day! Keen to hit it up again next week!
Chur!

P.s Footage from this, Aratiatia and the rest of the world trip this year coming soon...