Greenhouse? not yet

Ruapehu Bulletin, Volume 6, Issue 290, 13 June 1989, Page 5 (Supplement)

Greenhouse? not yet

If the scientists are to be believed, within two decades skiing in this country will be little more than a memory for the 230,000 or so New Zealanders who take to the slopes each year.

By then the full force of the so-called Greenhouse effect will, in theory, have hit us, average temperatures will have risen, the polar caps will have melted away raising the ocean level and skifields, once the playground of millions of people worldwide, will be little more than a memory. But skifield operators in this country, believe the Greenhouse Effect is yet to show here. The

industry is using historical data to prove that the current weather patterns are part of nature's cyclic pattern repeating itself. John Lee, at the age of 53, has spent all his life in the Cardrona Valley, 23 km from the township of Wanaka. While developing plans for the Cardrona skifield he poured over more than 60 years of farm records for the

valley and one thing became very clear: there has never been any such thing as a constant snowline. In fact, a definite pattern emerged of years when the snow wasn't as plentiful as other years, but what followed has always been several years of good snow. "If I was to put up a snowline fence today to stop sheep wandering into the snow during the winter months I would put it in exactly the same place as I would have 125 years ago," says Lee. He says there have been winters when the

Crown Range has been almost void of snow for the whole season, while other years have produced two or three metres of snow at any one time. High prices "I think what is happening now is that because people are paying what they believe to be high prices for their lift tickets and other related incidentals they expect the standard to be much higher than any time in the past and as a result they are picking holes in the skifield conditions." Lee's comments are strongly supported by other people who have had many years of experience in the industry as well. Recently-retired mountain manager of Coronet Peak skifield Sugar Robinson also recalls years when the field struggled for snow. "The records show that there have been many years when there was very little snow on Coronet and for that matter on the Remarkables range on the other side of the valley." He says every time the region suffered a two or three year period of poor snow everyone would claim that the demise of the ski industry was near. Ruapehu fate Mount Ruapehu has also suffered a similar fate over the years. Records show that there

have been some wide fluctuations in snow conditions during the past 50 years. Whakapapa skifield general manager Dave Mazey believes we have certainly damaged the atmosphere to a certain degree, but he doesn't believe it is responsible for the shortage of snow the field has faced in the last two or three years. "There have been years when this mountain has had very little snow on it, but people quickly forget those years, instead they only remember the good years." ' He says people rarely take a winter photograph of the mountain when there is little snow on it and a skifield is certainly not going to publish photographs in their records showing little snow on the mountain in winter months. Turoa mountain manager Andy Chapman agrees with Dave Mazey that there have been many years when there has been limited snow on the mountain. "Our records for the area where Turoa is situated go back to 1955 and in that 35year period we can see many parallels with what we have experienced in the last two or three years. The bottom line is simply what is happening now is not new."