It's been a terrible year for Ruapehu, what with everything between no international ski staff, fewer lifts running, lockdowns and distancing, car parking woes, and dismal snowfalls. I thought that this would be the first winter since I was 12 years old that I got zero snow days in. But lucky for me, there was a work snow weekend that I said yes to. I'm so glad I did.
Friday night saw us off promptly at 4pm and straight into a particularly bad Pukerau Bay traffic crawl. But strangely once we were past that we sped along with no holdups whatsoever and made Taihape for dinner, 3/4 of the way there - that's a first for me. We ate at Le Cafe Telephonique which was very pleasantly surprising (The Brown Sugar Cafe sets the Taihape bar pretty high). $20 for a very good chicken burger with heaps of tender yummy chicken meat crammed into it. We all got interesting sauces and condiments with our chips too, not just the standard ketchup or aoli. Will return! Hopefully the new roads coming on stream let us make Taihape every friday night.
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Le Cafe Telephonique |
Soon enough we were through Ohakune and into Ratehi. For the last drive I could see the unique headlights of a WRX behind me and sure enough Ben and I were driving in convoy.
The house was very strange with an odd layout, weird extra cavities built in, and an incredibly eclectic set of artwork on every wall. Including a spooky clown, watching every move in one of the bedrooms.
I was a late ring-in and the 'sleepout' was nowhere to be seen blundering around in the dark. But I didn't try very hard because truth be told, I like my sleeping bag and there was a perfectly good piece of carpet in the corner of the oddly shaped dining room that I made my own. I think my workmates thought this was quite weird, but just like the porch of a tramping hut, I slept better there than I do at home.
Saturday dawned to clag, drizzle and low expectations. For the first time in about five years I actually tried fitting my snow chains, just in case. The instructions are all in Japanese but there is this handy and hilarious video tutorial on youtube. It was easier than it looks - and the three pictures amongst all the japanese text are actually enough to get them on and off. They're way easier than regular chains.
But our quick 30min drive to Whakapapa was uneventful and easy. Car park system worked seamlessly with zero delay and no need for chains. It was gently snowing when we arrived and we piled out of the car and on to our various tasks - renting gear, getting lessons, down to Happy Valley or up the gondola.
I'd chosen skis for this weekend; I figured snow would be sparse, terrain would be limited so I'd be riding T-bars, hopping over rocks, walking around and over obstacles and negotiating traffic on lower cat tracks. It wasn't nearly that bad but I think between the T bars, the interminable traversing and the sparseness of lower mountain off-cat-track trails, I'd made the right call.
Valley T was open so that's where we headed initially. Initially iwith Carlos and Ben, later Liam came down. He really hated T-bars on his board! I rode with him a bit, apart from one '80% success' ride we both did pretty well.
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Carlos looking at the not-bad-at-all conditions |
Near the end of the day I heard someone call 'Mike!' and there were none other than Anita and Tim from our Nepal trip. It was great catching up with them and fun skiing with them too. We did a few runs together from top of Knoll Ridge T, all the way to the bottom. This seemed to be the run of the mountain with the conditions as they were.
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Anita and Tim |
The day was really good, coming from low expectations. There's been just enough snow to freshen up the whole mountain, and just as it was getting slushy and wet around 2pm, we got a short snow shower blow through that nicely crisped everything up. Having said that, I didn't find a single black run that was open and/or easy to get to. I could have hiked further out west and picked up some runs out there, and true the Pinnacles with their ice and frozen-in ruts were accessible from Valley T, but conditions didn't inspire me to try.
The mountain wasn't too crowded so even wading down Rockgarden and Tennants Valley wasn't too bad. Though I picked up collateral damage; a bent pole where I planted straight through the skiff of snow and jammed it between two rocks (I was wondering what was going to give but eventually the pole did after it bent itself into the right shape to release!).
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Yeah, that was a good day |
After a really, really good day it was back to Raetihi to freshen up. We were hoping for a local dinner burt pickings were slim. The Raetihi Cossie Club could have been the go but that was about it, all the other cafes were closing up or already closed. We decided to keep going back to Ohakune.
Demand was reduced but so was supply; it was not straightforward to find somewhere open and with space. Eventually we ended up at The Mountain Rocks bar, a trusty favourite on the main street. Covid complications meant that the owner had to do a lot of rearranging to get us seated and still socially distanced but he did a great job at sorting it. After a few minutes propped at some bar tables a dining table came free and we were ordering and eating.
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Lots of meat. Not bad. |
This bar does the tried and true thing of furnishing the walls with art for sale. It was eclectic and mostly a bit kitsch I thought. Including a painting of a cow. We talked about that cow a lot. And drank beers. And talked about the cow. By the end of the night we had all decided that she was beautiful, and when Michal pointed out that we only needed $15 each to buy her - the deal was done.
We left with a cow painting. And a 'prenup' for it. (It will live at work, and the last person still working there gets to keep it when they leave).
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Happy new owners |
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| Isn't she beautiful? |
This woman is almost as excited about a cow painting as us, read her blog for more
Sunday dawned with me, and everyone else, stiff and sore and tired. Some of us were hitting the slopes again, others checking out the sights and making a leisurely trip home. We cleaned up and packed up and headed off.
It was a slower start to the day and I shed all the layers I could! Yesterday I'd been far too hot, the trouble is that my ski jacket is also my handbag with all my essentials in all its pockets.
Not as good a day today. The light was flat to whited out, and the snow was initially icy and seemed to go straight to slushy without that nice spring corn conditions in the middle. I rode Knoll Ridge to bottom 2-3 times.
On one run I came across a knot of people in an inconvenient spot on a fast bit of the cat track... and discovered that they were treating an unconscious snowboarder! He was found unconscious and by himself, he must have caught an edge on the fastest bit where you need to hold speed to get up the uphill just past it. By this time he was awake and an ED nurse was sorting him out. So no chance to practice my first aid skills (thank goodness). I headed off and found a snow patroller to get help send down to him.
By 2:30pm I called it. I was back to Valley T in whiteout, ice and slush and it just wasn't fun anymore. On my way down for the last time I managed to pre-release hitting the mogully sloppy mashed spud snow on Tennants Valley. Not surprising, they're very old skis so I've got the DINs set quite loose since who knows how the springs are now. Still, an embarrassing place to fall over because you suddenly discover you're on a monoski.
Well, that was a great weekend. With the tribulations of 2020 that was my only two snow days for the whole season - and my low expectations were vastly exceeded. Another bonus was, between the days I did and the buddy pass discounts I gave away, I paid off my seasons pass in that weekend alone which made me pretty happy and convinced me to buy a 2021 pass after all. Roll on 2021 with no pandemic, some foreign staff to run the place, more snow and a nice Ohakune lodge to stay in.
