The Charlie Timmins Q&A

Charlie at Perisher earlier this year

Skier Profile | Words & Images:: Ben Hansen

Charlie Timmins, 21 year old skiing wunderkind and Jindabyne local has spent another season cementing his membership to the Australian skiing stratosphere fraternity.

Good mate and photographer Ben Hansen caught up with Charlie in the first week of September, in his down time between the Victorian SoO AirTime competition and the Toyota One Hit Wonder Down Under.

Charlie Timmins

So, winter is slowly coming to an end. I’ve noticed you have had quite a busy season juggling uni and skiing, what have you been up to this winter?

I was on break from Uni for a few weeks following opening weekend and was skiing at Thredbo with Boen (Ferguson) and Russell (Henshaw) most days. Since then I’ve been to New Zealand twice and to Victoria as well. Unfortunately I haven’t had much time to ski at home until now.

Let’s start with your first trip to NZ. The Heli Challenge has been one of the bigger events of the season. How was your time in Lake Hawea living in close quarters and skiing with some of the best in the world?

The Heli challenge is always fun because it is such a unique event with regard to off snow activities for the athletes. We wrote off some cars, went fishing, surfing etc. The skiing part isn’t bad either. We weren’t as lucky with snow this year but I think it worked out well all things considered. I was staying with Chris Booth and we skied at the club fields for a day, which I’d never done before, so that was cool.

At the 2010 Heli Challenge in New Zealand

The extra activities would be a great way to relax whilst still being in a competitive environment, also to get to know the other skiers and snowboarders involved. Once you arrived back in Sydney you pretty much did the turn around and flew straight back to NZ for the NZ Freeski open. The traveling involved with this sport must get a bit tiring sometimes. How was your second trip?

Yep that’s right. All the other athletes turned out to be a lot of fun. I came home for about four days then left again. I missed the slope and pipe of the NZ Open while I was at the Heli Challenge, but made the big mountain event on the second trip. Again the conditions weren’t great, but the show goes on. It was pretty fun and my friends all skied really well. After a few more days skiing here and there I did a heli day near Wanaka, and then went up to Mt Cook. We spent three days in the mountains up there with the North Face and finally the snow was good. Stability was great, terrain was great and we had amazing guides. It turned out to be one of the better trips I have done.

Camping in the mountains, skiing big lines and helicopters, could you ask for anything more? So the NZ experience came to an end, back on a plane and straight into Melbourne for the SoO Airtime comp at Mt Buller. It’s a fairly close skiing community in Australia and the boys, Watkin, Oscar and Joey, really turned it on down there bringing Australia’s best skiers together for a week on the mountain and off. What was your outlook on the SoO Airtime week?

Roller-coaster

I was so excited arriving in Melbourne. I hadn’t seen the Aussie guys in what seemed like forever and I knew that Watkin and Oscar had mind blowing week of skiing and partying organised. I drove straight to Mt Buller and was welcomed by absolutely everyone I love to ski with in Australia, including an injured Boen Ferguson. Booth, Sirriani, Jordan Houghton, Luke Kneller, Johnny Lipszker, Watkin and Oscar Mclennan, Joey Cororan and many more were there already. Uni Games coincided with the event too, so there were plenty of bright young things throwing up their beers in the gutter every night which added to the fun. It was an amazing week, I had the time of my life. Watkin and Oscar could not have pulled off a better event, it was the best I have ever been to.

And finally you’re back in Jindabyne for the time being before you head back to study in Sydney, some people say that spring time is the most fun time of year, skiing with friends in the warmer weather would you agree?

Definitely it is good to be home. Haven’t skied park in months either, so I have been having the best time. See you at Clancys. Not Banjos.

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