new zealand\s club ski fields
Last Updated : GMT 09:07:40
Egypt Today, egypt today
Egypt Today, egypt today
Last Updated : GMT 09:07:40
Egypt Today, egypt today

New Zealand's club ski fields

Egypt Today, egypt today

Egypt Today, egypt today New Zealand's club ski fields

Wellington - Arabstoday

It's late afternoon in the mountains of New Zealand's South Island and my new ski buddy Judith and I are trying to stop skiing. Only it's too good to stop — especially now that the day visitors have left and it's just us, the last two skiers on the mountain, doing fast runs on beautiful snow with no lift queues. Eventually, our weary legs make the call for us and as we start down the cat track that leads to the back door of the only accommodation on the mountain — a small lodge where the lights have come on now; the lifts magically grind to a halt. It seems the ski patrollers on duty have been letting us have our fun before shutting down the diesel generators that power the lifts and heading indoors themselves. It's 5.30pm, an hour later than the usual closing time. Can you imagine this happening at a commercial ski resort? Our long and glorious day at the club ski field of Mt Cheeseman, 90 minutes west of Christchurch, has been the perfect introduction to a totally different concept in skiing. What exactly is a club ski field? If you've never heard of Cheeseman or even New Zealand's club ski fields, you're not alone. Unlike the ever-popular but often crowded commercial ski fields (such as Mt Hutt, Treble Cone, Mt Ruapehu in the North Island and Coronet Peak), club fields promise an alpine experience unlike any other. They're essentially small ski areas owned and operated by ski clubs and their main aim is to offer affordable skiing for members who pay an annual fee, participate in voluntary "work parties" every summer and help out during the ski season. But non-members are increasingly getting wind of club fields, seeing them as a low-cost, more authentic, alternative to the rising costs of skiing at the commercial fields. "The club fields of New Zealand, non-profit ski areas with limited infrastructure and unlimited spirit, are an anomaly in the modern, fast-paced ski industry," says John Mletschnig, originally from Utah, who worked at Mt Cheeseman as the mountain's Snow Safety Officer last winter. He was so deeply affected by his first club field experience, he's returning to work in NZ's South Island this winter. "The skiing is wild [at the club fields]," he says. "It's really untapped and no-holds-barred." In the beginning The first club fields were established in the mountains just west of Christchurch in New Zealand's South Island, in 1929. There were no access roads back then, so a day of skiing generally began with a long hike. Of course, you had to carry your own skis and bring everything you needed in a backpack. Lunch would be a picnic under a tree along the way, and whenever you wanted to ski down a hill, you had to climb it first. Eventually, these hardy pioneer skiers banded together to form clubs, which then built roads, huts (that later became lodges) and rope tows to haul them up the mountains — and the club field movement began. Club skiing today There are now 10 club ski fields in New Zealand, most of them in the South Island. Two are in the North Island: Manganui (on Mt Taranaki) and Tukino (on Mt Ruapehu). The other eight are in the South Island: Mt Cheeseman, Broken River, Craigieburn, Mt Olympus, Temple Basin, Fox Peak and Hanmer Springs Ski Area (which are all within a two-hour drive of Christchurch) and Rainbow Ski Area, near Nelson at the top of the South Island. They vary in terms of terrain and facilities but the one thing all club fields have in common is they offer no-frills skiing. The accommodation generally consists of bunk rooms (though some fields are upping the comfort factor with double rooms and ensuites), and the dining is communal. You wash your own dishes and help with the cooking and the chores around the lodge, although most clubs have paid staff such as a chef, ski instructors, ski patrollers and a manager as well. Everyone socialises and skis together. And it's often all-hands-on-deck when a lift is derailed or the groomer breaks down. The simple things in life Sure, getting there can be a challenge: access roads are gravel, chains mandatory and some fields, like Temple Basin, involve a rather long walk from the car park to the lodge (there's a goods lift to transport your skis and luggage up the hill). Another unique feature of club fields is that most of them use rope tows, which can be tricky for the uninitiated. Some fields, such as Cheeseman, have T-bars but none of them has anything as fancy as a chairlift. There's a certain novelty in wearing a tow-belt alarmingly nicknamed a "nutcracker" (for the guys, anyway) to help you stay attached to a moving rope that pulls you up the hill, and leather rigging gloves to protect your hands and keep your Gore-Tex gloves clean. If all this sounds rather primitive, you've understood the concept of club skiing perfectly. They have stripped skiing back to its roots: simple, friendly and inexpensive. You could even say that club skiing takes you back to a time when skiing didn't have anything to do with wealth or status or the kind of gear you had; it was, and is, about sliding around on the snow, having fun with people who love the mountains as much as you do.

egypttoday
egypttoday

Name *

E-mail *

Comment Title*

Comment *

: Characters Left

Mandatory *

Terms of use

Publishing Terms: Not to offend the author, or to persons or sanctities or attacking religions or divine self. And stay away from sectarian and racial incitement and insults.

I agree with the Terms of Use

Security Code*

new zealand\s club ski fields new zealand\s club ski fields



GMT 19:31 2018 Tuesday ,23 January

Crashed Ice, the winter sport spectacular

GMT 12:17 2018 Monday ,22 January

'Attacking Vikings' peak for Pyeongchang Olympics

GMT 08:34 2017 Sunday ,31 December

Nepal bans solo climbers from Everest

GMT 09:20 2017 Sunday ,29 October

World downhill champion Stuhec out of Olympics

GMT 09:51 2017 Wednesday ,05 April

Pyeongchang hopeful NHL stars will play

GMT 12:21 2017 Tuesday ,04 April

NHL won't participate in 2018 Olympic Games

GMT 12:18 2017 Tuesday ,04 April

NHL won't participate in 2018 Olympic Games

GMT 08:35 2017 Thursday ,30 March

China to stage first NHL preseason games

GMT 13:04 2018 Wednesday ,03 October

Qureshi agreed cooperation with United States

GMT 08:37 2017 Wednesday ,09 August

Gulf diplomatic crisis splits families, dashes dreams

GMT 12:50 2015 Wednesday ,28 January

15 Israeli soldiers killed in Hezbollah missile attack

GMT 11:52 2018 Tuesday ,23 January

Saudi university to open driving school for women

GMT 03:50 2017 Sunday ,23 April

Drought-hit Somalia moves closer

GMT 09:30 2017 Saturday ,08 July

Law enforcement forces in N. Sinai in manhunt

GMT 09:20 2017 Sunday ,29 October

World downhill champion Stuhec out of Olympics

GMT 09:08 2017 Tuesday ,15 August

Iranian drone buzzes US aircraft over Gulf

GMT 08:28 2017 Friday ,07 July

Beauty & hair magazine

GMT 12:10 2015 Thursday ,26 November

UAE Space Agency launches Planet Mars contest

GMT 14:27 2018 Thursday ,01 November

German businesses support closer EU-Russia ties
 
 Egypt Today Facebook,egypt today facebook  Egypt Today Twitter,egypt today twitter Egypt Today Rss,egypt today rss  Egypt Today Youtube,egypt today youtube  Egypt Today Youtube,egypt today youtube

Maintained and developed by Arabs Today Group SAL.
All rights reserved to Arab Today Media Group 2021 ©

Maintained and developed by Arabs Today Group SAL.
All rights reserved to Arab Today Media Group 2021 ©

egypttoday egypttoday egypttoday egypttoday
egypttoday egypttoday egypttoday
egypttoday
بناية النخيل - رأس النبع _ خلف السفارة الفرنسية _بيروت - لبنان
egypttoday, Egypttoday, Egypttoday