New Zealand stuff (still skiing!)

[G]

Hey Y’all
sorry I haven't been reporting in much lately, internet is hard to find around here. I've got a few more trip reports coming up, I'll get them posted as soon as i can. these pictures are lo-res scans from a cardboard camera. forgive me if they aren't the best.
anyway, here's a TR from a couple of weeks ago: 18 October 2003:



Well, I finally made it out to see the other ski mountain here on the north island. Manganui lifts on the east side of Mt Taranaki (aka Egmont), It’s another one of those “club fields” New Zealand is famous for. Club field means "more fun, but low budget and no facilities". The trip's timeline went something like this:

Monday afternoon: call the place and see if they are still open. After trying for a few hours, someone finally answers the phone and gives me the beta. $25 lift tickets, less if you’re a club member. The skiing is good, and the weather is great, come on up. But not too early, maybe try around ten o’clock or so.

Cool, so the girlfriend and I hop in the truck and head on over from Ohakune. Four+ hours drive later and we stop for the night near the base. Mel has family living nearby, so we score an awesome place to stay right on one of the best surfing beaches in NZ. I try a little surfing, and get beat down, but have a blast. The town of Taranaki is great, too. It's a rare town in NZ that doesn't pander to the tourists, and this is one of them. There's actually a bunch of Americans in town filming some movie [add - the last samurai] and everyone thinks I'm part of that crowd, and is really nice, despite my 'mericanism.

Rise early and get out asap, to insure first tracks. (okay, it’s springtime, so I guess it’s really first corn). There's blue skies, and not a cloud in sight.

9:00 we arrive at the bottom of the access road and start driving up. This road is really good for a New Zealand ski resort… it’s somewhat paved.

9:30 arrive at the carpark. I'm psyched to see there's almost nobody here. The parking lot has few cars in it. there's a nice view of the mountain which comees and goes as the clouds are quickly rolling by.

http://www.tetongravity.com/usergall...%20carpark.jpg


We fill our backpacks and start walking. There’s a 40 minute walk from the parking lot to the lifts. at one point the trail crosses a giant avalanche path with tons of fresh debris. No worries, It’s a nice walk. cruise along with skis on shoulder, traversing along the side of a mountain. Dodge rocks rolling down the hill. At one spot the falling rocks are so deadly that they've built a tunnel to protect the hikers. 15 minutes later we arrive at the “goods lift” it’s a gondola for skis and backpacks, so you don’t have to carry your gear in the difficult parts, and across the avalanche track.

Here's a photo of what the trail looked like. this shot was actually taken as we were walking out.

http://tetongravity.com/usergallerie...trail%20up.jpg

Damn. The goods lift doesn't work. keep walking like a pack mule.

10:15 a.m. we finally arrive. . The hiking has done a good job of wearing me out, It’s frigging hot for this time of year, but I’m psyched to be skiing. At the top of the trail we find two buildings out in a field. One is an empty room with a bench, and the other looks like first aid room, which is closed and locked.

Here's a shot of the hike in. the carpark is in the top right, and the red dots show the trail up to the base area.
http://tetongravity.com/usergallerie...aki%20path.jpg


From the base, a t-bar goes up a gentle slope in front of us. Above the t-bar, there’s the “nutcracker lift”. it's a rope tow-like lift that goes high up into the clouds

http://biglines.com/photos/blpic14526.jpg

Now we look around for some other people. There is nobody here. Noone at all. Shit! where is everybody? It’s 10:30 and there’s nobody here! they're closed?

So, I proceed to deal with this fucking crisis in my usual manner. first I have a tantrum, then I have a nap.

12:30 I’m awakened by a motley looking group of skier-types walking up the sketchy access trail in 1980's getup - rear entry ski boots, jeans, and wool sweaters. I assume they're clueless tourists. They walk directly to the top of the goods lift and the thing jumps to life, their antique ski gear soon follows. It turns out they’re the ski club, and they have the keys!!!! We’re saved!

Skiing today after all! I’m instantly happier. And I’m also inspired to know that there’s people out there who sleep even later than I.

12:45 conditions on the t-bar are looking crappy, and no-one wants to ski there anyway, so they fire up the quad-bike to drag the six of us up to the better lift. Once there, they crank up the nutcracker lift, which quickly breaks down.

1:00 we waste time waiting for the lift to get fixed by shoveling snow onto the take-off ramp. Finally, things are underway, and I tentatively have a go at this frighteningly dodgy lift.

I crash.
So, what is a nutcracker lift? It’s a rope tow that moves really really really fast. scary fast. Think High-speed-detachable-rope-tow It also goes on for about a mile. It’s so hard to hold on to, you need a nutcracker to grab it. A nutcracker is sort of like a big pair of pliers. lash the nutcracker onto your climbing harness, then grab the rope with it. Try not to get your fingers caught in the wheels that guide the rope up the hill, or you'll probably lose them.

http://www.biglines.com/photos/blpic14529.jpg

Here's Mel holding on for dear life as she approaches one of the pulleys. the view here is pretty amazing, and if you look closely, the pacific is visible in the background.

http://www.tetongravity.com/usergall...racker%7E1.jpg

Finally make it, and find this place to be just awesome. . I take my first run down the central bowl, which is the biggest, and apparently a huge active avalanche path. It goes on forever, and the run is epic. There’s huge gully/bowls on every side, and each one is like skiing down a GIANT halfpipe. It’s really fun to see how far I can get up the side of each wall. On the right side, there’s a bit of a cornice which is good for popping little airs. There’s also lots of room to go really, really fast here

http://www.biglines.com/photos/blpic14519.jpg


1:30. we get to the bottom, and the lift is broken down again. For some reason, all of the safety switches are faulting. We hang around for a while and have another picnic. All is good, and the weather seems to be holding. A few clouds come by occasionally and cover the place, and then blow away. the mountain is a volcano that pops up in the middle of a peninsula, out into the pacific ocean, and you can see the beach on either side of the mountain.

Mel is tired of waiting, so she puts her skis on her shoulder and walks up the hill to do a run.

2:00 lift is still broken, and we’re all getting a little restless now. The club members trying to fix the lift get tired of hearing us complain and decide to give up. They inform us that they have decided to short-circuit all of the safety switches to make the lift go, so we should "try not to fuck up and don’t forget to let go when we get to the top, or you'll possibly die".

No problem! we’re all happy with that and I make another try at surviving the rope tow from hell.

It’s worth it. This is awesome. It’s so nice to be out skiing somewhere new. all winter I’ve been staring across at this mountain from Ruapehu. The runs that follow are great, doing lots of exploring off to the sides of the usual spots. Gullies here are piled deep with snow. Rip all over the place, and have a ball. The snow is typical springtime corn, and smooooth to ride. Daylight savings just arrived and the orange glow of late day is beautiful to ski in. There’s only six of us here, including the guys from the ski club who are taking turns operating the lift. We hardly cross paths at all on the way down.

http://www.biglines.com/photos/blpic14528.jpg
http://www.biglines.com/photos/blpic14518.jpg

5:00 they apologize for the late start, and tell the two of us that we can stay as late as we want. There’s still daylight, and the snow is great, so, we keep going!

6:15 p.m. okay, that’s enough for one day. Time to call it quits. They apologize for the delays with the lift and tell us that they'll only charge ten dollars for the pair of us, for the cost for the lifts and equipment rental (nutcracker). That comes to about $5 USD dollars for the two of us for the day. We head down. Instead of skiing back to the base of the lift and walking out, we ski down the avalanche track that makes up the main bowl of the skifield, and drops off nearly at the carpark.

http://www.biglines.com/photos/blpic14522.jpg

That saves us about 30 minutes of walking out. The avalanches that have come down here this year have made for some interesting terrain features, and some of them are perfect for launching. I couldn’t resist the maggot special - crotch-grab. That was for you guys.

http://www.tetongravity.com/usergall...tch%20grab.jpg


All up, it was a really good day


http://www.biglines.com/photos/blpic14521.jpg

[DJSapp]

That's one frickin awesome TR there Geoff. I'm really bummed out that I didn't get the chance to make some turns with you when I was on the south island. Glad to hear that you're still gettin some in the southern hemisphere, and those late season dumps are still hangin around.

NZ for 2004 summer summit!!!!

[G]

Mt Ruapehu has been closed for sorms the last three days.

tomorrow it reopens with a foot of fresh.

Neener

[interloper]

Thanks for sharing.

[bad_roo]

Perhaps we need a 'Club Hill'somewhere...

[gincognito]

Thumbs up for a fine report.

Sick and ashamed and happy (and jealousy rising),
d.

[splat]

Geoff, good to hear you're still out there. Nice TR. You coming back or getting nationalized?

[Dromond]

Nice write-up of club field skiing! I did a bit of that at Temple Basin this season. Their lift was broken when we arrived as well! We didn't get quite as lucky, however. The snow was shit and they charged us full price