Luke Harrold spends most of his days 1600 metres above sea level shredding the Cardrona slopes.
The 14-year-old is one of the country's top freeskiing prospects and is in his element flipping through the air above the snow.
"It’s pretty cool and everything kind of goes silent it’s just you up there doing your thing," says the kid from Lake Hawea.
Harrold is currently in the development programme but he trains with the heavy weights in the national programme, training under Tommy Pyatt who's taken Nico Porteous to Olympic glory.
He is currently Pyatt's youngest protege who still has two more years before being eligible to compete at World Cup events.
"He’s ready now," says Pyatt.
"He’s already working on some of the same tricks being done at the Olympics so he’s very advance for is age."
The teenager only picked up skiing at the age of eight - that age considered a late start - but what makes Harrold unique is his background in gymnastics.
He even punches above his weight in mixed martial arts which Pyatt says gives him a different edge.
"All the movement patterns he’s picked up from previous sports just mean he learns tricks so much faster."
Snow Sports NZ has a designated trampoline where athletes practice their tricks before taking them onto the slopes.
Just this month they invited Olympic bronze medal trampolinist Dylan Schmidt to give their snow athletes a couple of tips.
"He’s a really nice guy he was amazing on the tramp and his tricks were really inspiring and really amazing," says Harrold.
Earlier this year Harrold competed at the Junior World Championships, his first international event.
The 14-year-old finished 11th in the halfpipe, 23rd in slopestyle and 29th in the big air events.
"I was just stoked to be there it was really everyone was super like stoked and excited, yeah it was really cool," says Harrold.
But is biggest challenge to date comes this week, when he drops in for the Winter Games.
"As one of his first bigger international comps with some big guys he just needs to enjoy it and have a good competition experience," says Pyatt.
But Harrold is under no illusion just how big of a task it will be.
"It’s all about chasing chasing up everyone else and and getting better than them."
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