by Conor Miller
After seeing that she was receiving medical
attention I was in quite a predicament. Should I see how she's doing
and be a good friend? I grabbed the rope, locked on, and went for
some fresh tracks. I'll see her at lunch. It's not like I could
fix her hand anyway.
It was opening day at Broken River Ski Field in New Zealand, and
our first encounter with the infamous nutcracker. The nutcracker
is the heart and soul of club field skiing, embodying toughness
and simplicity by being old-fashioned. This device alone is responsible
for keeping the slopes empty, resulting in a skiing experience that
rivals heli-skiing. The nutcracker is connected to a harness and
it allows you to hold onto the fast rope tow, pulling you up the
mountain. You grab the rope with your inside hand (have a glove
protector on so the rope doesn't melt your gloves) and go up with
the rope until your grasp is firm. Then, sling the nutcracker around
perpendicularly to the rope and hold it closed as you ride uphill.
At the end of the ride, simply let go of the nutcracker and you
are off.
All of the club fields except for Porter Heights operate with the
rope tow. The club fields are mountains with a few rope tows that
take you to the top, each run by a club of ski buddies, and there
are a handful of them in the center of the South Island. Most have
lodging in small huts at the base. The best two club fields are
Craigieburn, which has a reputation for being the most difficult
mountain in the southern hemisphere, and Mount Olympus, the most
remote of the club fields with the fewest skiers and the most powder
because it is a south facing ski field. Both of these have a small
amount of skiers and extreme terrain, causing me to ask "why
do people fork over $800 for a chopper instead of doing this for
$25?" The club fields have been operating for 50 years and
are New Zealand's best-kept skiing secret. Armed with a Chill Pass
to give me unlimited days at seven club fields, most of which are
off SH 73 in Arthur's Pass on the South Island, I was free to spend
a season exploring the wild mountains of the Southern Alps, immersing
myself in a distinct ski culture that I came to love.
After mastering the nutcracker, these mountains quickly take on
a feeling of belonging and homeliness as you get to know the mountain
and the ski club that runs it. After skiing Craigieburn a few times
I got to know some of the club members and really felt at home there,
and I felt that my lift ticket was a contribution to keeping the
ski field running. It is easy to quickly get attached to these mountains
when there are so few skiers on them, and the ones dedicated to
the mountain become your friends.
The season started off with a good deal of excitement to ski new
mountains and different terrain. But there was a lot of pain involved
too as expected powder days vanished into thin air. And as the slopes
were hurting for snow, they were hurting the bases of our skis too.
My mates ripped out four edges on that opening day at Broken River.
When August came around though, the ski fields got pounded with
snow for the rest of the season. With great snow and a lot of learning
about skiing the Kiwi way, the experience shifted from frustration
and excitement, to something pure and beautiful, especially at my
favorite mountain, Craigieburn.
At Craigieburn, there are an endless variety of chutes that funnel
into three bowls. My mates and I would explore new chutes and cliffs
for the whole season. It was the best snow in ten years that season,
but it came late when people were out of the skiing mode, so we
had epic powder days to ourselves almost every weekend from mid-August
to mid-October. We jump-turned down 800-foot chutes not much wider
than the length of a ski and you had to straight-line the end of
them. Or you could rip high-speed turns down the wide and steep
couloirs. Some of the chutes I had to stop at the top and ask myself
"Is it possible to ski down this?" Many chutes have high
walls of snow and are natural half pipes to make bank turns on.
And after every run down the Middle Basin, we would all agree that
that was the best run of our lives.
When I think back on skiing the club fields
of New Zealand, one feeling dominates my mind - heavenly solitude.
You can stand on the mountaintop with your mates, look in every
direction and not see a single person. And with the skiing all above
tree line, you can see the whole mountain and all the fresh tracks
to be made every time you go skiing. There are usually only a dozen
skiers on the ski field, and you only see them on the rope tow.
Skiing the club fields is like going back in time with modern skis.
The places have not changed since their opening, and the mentality,
normal for Kiwis but sadly old-fashioned for the States, is that
you are on your own so use good judgment.
Skiing the club fields is a more natural and therefore more engaged
form of skiing, a cross between backcountry and inbounds. Snow conditions
vary frequently with the weather. Southerlies bring coldness and
good snow. Nor'westers bring heavy wind and wet snow, and sometimes
a meter of it. There are no trail signs. You can get hurt on these
mountains if you don't know where you're going, and there are no
warning signs either, except the one at the base that tells you
the avalanche danger of the day. Some chutes don't have a skiable
ending and if you don't stop you'll be picked off the sharp rocks
in pieces.
The club fields are completely uncommercialized. There are a couple
ski patrollers there for avalanche dangers, but you usually wear
avalanche transceivers anyway. The base, which you often have to
hike a ways to get to, is a small group of huts for lodging and
lift tickets. After a dump of snow, they open an hour or two later
due to avalanche testing, and a dozen skiers wait patiently at the
bottom. I have not seen this patience on a powder day anywhere else.
In the beginning, I was irritated that they were not opening at
the normal time, and I ran to get to the rope tow first when the
gate opened. But I calmed down after I realized I was the only one
in a rush. There's going to be fresh tracks all day long - all week
long actually, and my legs won't last the whole day anyway. With
the nutcracker, hiking, and skiing, there's no rest for your legs
except for the lunchtime BBQ.
Mount Olympus offers a skiing experience unlike any other. It calls
itself, "The Playground of the Gods," and there's a good
reason the Gods chose to ski here. It has the best powder in New
Zealand, and also perhaps the most character. The access road is
dirt and winds around steep mountain shelves and through cattle
gates we had to open and close. The ride drags on like this for
45-minutes. At the bottom of the mountain, everyone must radio to
the top station, where the car park is, to check if the one lane
road is clear to drive up (all the club fields start half-way up
the mountain where the best snow conditions are). Then at the bottom
towrope, a ski patroller would get it going for us as we were usually
there first thing in the morning, and he would tell us to shut it
off if we were the last ones down at the end of the day, ski fields
can not get more laid-back. At the end of one day, my mates and
I joined the dozen skiers that were on the mountain and went to
the top ridge, hauling brewskis for the sunset. As the sun sank
into the spectacular Southern Alps, I sat on the ridge with ski
patrollers rolling joints, drinking Speight's Ale, and thought this
has got to be the coolest place in the world.
It was not the quality of the skiing that I loved the most, but
the whole experience that separates the club fields from all the
other mountains in the world; the nutcrackers and the 4WD or "chains
required" access roads, the charming and unpredictable weather
patterns that can get under your skin, and the layback atmosphere.
I also loved the accent and style of the Kiwi skiers, the wide-open
mountains that don't get tracked out and ripping turns down them
with good mates. I skied with buddies from Jackson Hole and Bozeman.
And a ski patroller, after we told him we're from the West and what
chute we just skied, said "you guys are cowboys!" and
pulled out his fingers like guns in a quick-draw.
And so, on the last day of the season, the best snow year in a decade,
three young and wild men stood on the high mountaintop, all seeing
the same thing: More mountains in all directions, than we had ever
seen before, then, looking down, untouched chutes and a trackless
bowl beneath. Then the world becomes heaven as our unmoving skis
shift to point themselves downhill, and we are in motion, and we
are free.
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