ACCESS HOLDS THE FUTURE OF CANTERBURY SKI-ING

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31098, 29 June 1966, Page 15

ACCESS HOLDS THE FUTURE OF CANTERBURY SKI-ING

Access is the most important factor in the continuing growth of ski-ing in New Zealand and, once the sport becomes established as something everyone can enjoy, considerations of access are likely to be even more important than they are at the moment.

The amazing growth of the numbers participating in the sport during the last decade is almost entirely attributable to considerations of access.

Last year at the New Zealand Ski-ing championships at Coronet Peak, more than 5000 people attended and skied on the slopes during one day. And if this was the greatest number of any one day on Coronet Peak, several thousand skied there every day during the August school and university vacations.

For almost the whole of its history, ski-ing in New Zealand has been closely allied with mountaineering clubs and it is only in the last 20 years, in Canterbury at any rate, that ski-ing clubs have had a separate existence of their own.

Even in the Craigieburn Ranges, it was the best part of five hours trek to reach the snow basins from the main road and much of this climb was through thick bush in precipitous country. The slopes at Mount Cook and Erewhon were as much as a day’s climb from the nearest jumping off point. A prime example of this state of affairs was the Craigieburn Valley field which was originally run by the Canterbury Mountaineering Club. It took a fully fit mountaineer to get there.

And when he got there, what did he find in the way of facilities? The old huts, built by human labour, were vast undertakings even in their most primitive form when there was no way to take in materials other than on a pair of shoulders. These huts were monuments to those who built them and were fully adequate to accommodate those wish-

Ing to use them. But ski-ing began to grow in popularity and they became overcrowded. New huts were built but they were insufficient to meet the demand. In the 1930’s some fields acquired their first tows but these too were insufficient to meet the demand. The skiers of the time realised that the future of the sport was going to depend on decent access to the fields.

So, at great cost and effort, the roads were built Elsewhere in this supplement is a picture of the road being carved by a bulldozer into the Amuri field, and this gives some idea of the difficulties involved. The spoil in front of the bulldozer has obviously been blasted but! the hillside itself is a complex; of rotten rock.

In the Craigieburn Ranges the roads had to be pushed ; through thick bush on precipitous hillsides, care being I needed not to cause gigantic i slips. Temple Basin still lacks a road to the field itself and anyone who has climbed the track to the field will understand why. But the access roads were pushed through and ski-ing in Canterbury has never looked back. Nearly all the fields now have roads and membership is snowballing. But the battle for access has only been half won. Although the fields have roads : into them, although they have modern and capacious huts, although they have tows and good lifts, although they are now open to anyone who wishes to ski; there is much that ski-ing can yet do to improve its standing. For most of the winter, and extending well into spring and autumn, the roads are impassable to cars without

chains. They are narrow, they are steep, in many cases the car parks at the top are inadequate for the numbers wishing to use them; so that the fields are reaching saturation point. There is a greater demand on the space in the huts than can be provided for, and the tow queues are becoming more and more like those at Mount Ruapehu. Few fields make attractive provision for day trippers

who sit out their rest breaks in discomfort and often in isolation. As the day tripper is of growing economic importance to the fields, it is time some provision was made for him. The answer to these problems is basically a matter of access. The roads must be further improved to permit twoway traffic on them, there must be parking places at strategic intervals on the roads, they must be kept clear of Snow, they ought to be open to use by cars without chains, and they must have large car parks at the top. Once this has been done it will be far more economic to build day huts and an increased number of weekend huts, something which it places a frightful financial burden on the clubs to build today. This programme will not be cheap and it will not be popular with those who have to do it either. But neither was the first stage of improving access when it was implemented 20 years ago. Then, skiers had the vision what could happen

to the sport if it was given its head, and the same situation applies today. What form the sport will take if the clubs decide to make access easier than it is now is anyone’s guess. But it is safe to say that ski-ing has now reached a crisis in its development and it can either after its whole character or stagnate. It is far from stagnating at present but it could in the future. This is a great sport. It suffers because the general public ■ thinks it is too expensive and it is too difficult to reach. Of course, It is expensive and the ski-fields are a little

difficult to reach. But in the current affluent society of New Zealand it is within anyone’s pocket to go ski-ing so the way to overcome this public mental blockage is to improve access. Only then will the sport achieve the major status it warrants. Improved access and all the increased field amenities that go with it, will be expensive. But therein lies the path to the future of ski-ing in New Zealand.