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About Us
The Mountainwatch.com team is as passionate and dedicated about the mountains as you are.
After leaving a career in the financial markets of Sydney behind over 15 years ago, Russell has since been chasing powder snow and traversing the mountain ranges of the world. His addiction to the snow and many winters back-to-back forged him a career as a professional snowboarder in the Australian and New Zealand region. By 2003 Russell became the editor of that magazine publication where he stayed for 5 years helping to build the publication to the number one snowboarding magazine in Australia and New Zealand. Along the way the he launched the online component of that magazine and introduced other innovative new products to the industry. Russell is passionate about the mountains, action sports and the Australasian snow industry, and he along with our snow focused team are continually pursuing innovative ways to promote our industry, our brand partners, local athletes and the mountains of our region.
Mountainwatch's editor and token girl came to snow publishing by way of a few seasons as a ski instructor, a stint in the marketing department of Thredbo and a couple of uni degrees - one in publishing. While the rest of the Mountainwatch team were out gaining their credentials on world's best slopes and in the world's big mountains she was sitting at a desk at Sydney Uni leaning about the existence of The Style Manual (every editor's bible). She has strong opinions about the use of commas, continuity of style and standard date formats and advocates for correct grammar and punctuation. When not at her desk - which bares the sign 'Queen of Friggin Everything' she uses work as an excuse to sample the ski resorts of Australia and abroad, documenting her travels for Mountainwatch and Chillfactor Ski Magazine. The only part of her job she enjoys more than writing about her snow travels is helping Russell Holt edit his. Before Mountainwatch and between degrees Tessa was a ski instructor in Thredbo and in Kaprun - Austria, where she taught English school kids how to ski on real snow (the prevalence of dry slopes in Britain is astounding). She swapped ski instructing for a desk in Thredbo's marketing department and lived full time in Thredbo for nearly two years before returning to Sydney and straight into the Mountainwatch family. She has Reggae Elliss to thank for her entree into Mountainwatch, from an assistant in his Rip Curl shop in Thredbo and sometime babysitter she is now... the person who authorises his invoices. Having dreamed of finding a 'real job' in the snow industry while on a holiday to Jackson Hole in 2005 she is stoked (almost) every day to be living that dream. This year she returned to Jackson Hole as part of a trip for Chillfactor Ski Magazine and spent five days skiing with the locals in the backcountry as a guest of the resort, which affirmed her belief that this industry has the best fringe benefits in the world.
Since 1989 Reggae has spent every winter in Thredbo. As Australia's most well known surf reporter and surf mag editor Reggae has parlayed these skills becoming an iconic snow reporter, editor and co-publisher of Australia's number one ski magazine Chillfactor since it's launch in 2000. Reggae's passion for surf never cooled despite living in the Snowy Mountains. He's currently managing editor/co-publisher of Surfing World, Australia's longest running surfing magazine from 1997 until present. Complimenting this, Reggae's also a presenter/reporter of snow content as well as the Surfing World surf show on Bigpond Sports TV. As a current anchor commentator for live broadcast on Fuel TV and live webcast of major ASP (Association of Surfing Professional) world tour events including Rip Curl Pro at Bells Beach, Rip Curl Pro Portugal, Rip Curl Pro Search and Commonwealth Bank Beachley Classic, Reggae maintains a busy schedule when not enjoying time with his family in Thredbo. With 20 years experience as a surf and snow reporter for various radio stations including Triple M, WSFM, MIXFM, 2UE, Triple J, and the Edge 96.1, Reggae has been coined a "one take wonder" when it comes to snow and surf reporting never confusing the two. But listen close and you just might hear Reggae suggest the snow conditions will improve with the out going tide!
In 1999, after finishing high school Nick packed his snowboard bags for his first season in Fernie BC. What he didn't know was that this was the beginning of a 11 year endless winter across the globe. After 5 years being supported by Billabong purely as an athlete, Nick picked up an additional role working in the Billabong marketing department as the snow marketing guru while still snowboarding at a professional level. Then in 2009 nick left Billabong and both jobs snowboarding and marketing to produce s series of TV interstitials for Fuel TV and Burton Snowboards called 'I Heart WNTR' that documented the winter season through the eyes of professional snowboarders in Australia and New Zealand. In late 2009 after the winter season Nick came on board with the Mountainwatch.com and Transfer Snowboard Magazine team as the online content manager. The rest is history! Our Associates are: In his travels he has seen most of the world, both cold and warm. Worked in the movies along side Roger Along with being a host and commentator on a range or winter sports programming for channels 7, 9, 10, Steve remains very visible around the snow scene and its media and is one of only a few winter
In 1995, Nick was first introduced to the wonderful world of snowboarding - albeit hard boot snowboarding. After having skateboarded since the age of 5 he was instantly hooked on snowboarding and even bought his first snowboard magazine before he had even tried it. Since those days in a blizzard on the learner's slopes of the North Island Nick found himself juggling everything else to make room for time on the snow. After winning the North Island Secondary School champs in 2001 he gained his first sponsor, Lower Clothing, and is still riding for them to this day. Soon after this Nick traveled to Japan as an exchange student. His host family lived across the road from the resort and Nick soon fell in love with Japan and has traveled back there every year since. Nick now have a really supportive sponsor network and has access to travel budgets to assist me in getting him back to Japan and up the hills around Queenstown. Being based in Queenstown has allowed Nick to develop the opportunities required to produce and host the web series 'Diaries Downunder' with Reason Films and Winter Volume. Nick is also now the host of the Mountainwatch.com New Zealand weather reports and a contributing writer for Transfer Magazine. The Grasshopper"Some say he hatched one summer on a Himalayan plateau. As cold Autumn winds set in, he stumbled upon a scrap of goretex shed by some unfortunate climber and turned it into the smallest snowsuit ever. Then he strapped himself into a nearby leaf and carved his way down the mountains, hitching a ride with some hikers back to civilisation. They say he's boarded at all the best resorts and always knows when a blizzard is on the way. He is: The Grasshopper." We work closely with:Met Service - New Zealand's most reliable weather service.
Then we urge you to contact the editor tess@mountainwatch.com
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Russell Holt
Tess Cook
Reggae Ellis
Nick Gregory
Steve Lee
Nick Hynes| Mountainwatch Partners: |  |
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