Skifield serenity for groomers

Ruapehu Bulletin, Volume 10, Issue 458, 20 October 1992, Page 13

Skifield serenity for groomers

By Mamie Woodd Picture Mount Ruapehu at the end of a cloudless, windless sunny day. All the skiers and snowboarders have gone and the sun is about to set. A bank of clouds is rolling slowly in, obscuring Mt Egmont. Sunlight is batheing the skifield, tuming the white mounds of snow to gold. It is perfectly still. The feeling that you are quite insignificant in the scheme of things, compared to this awesome example of nature is strong. Mary Eich McCavana, Turoa cat driver, has seen this mountain scene a hundred times but still finds it amazing. The sound of a cat groomer's engine breaks the silence, and Mary and her 240hp Kassbohrer appear around the comer of the cafe. My stomach clenches as I envisage someone getting chewed up by the huge slicing tracks that give the cat its grip. I swallow hard and climb up on the tracks and into the cab. Tonight I'm tagging along for the night shift grooming until 1am. The cat is really comfortable and warm with a great stereo, a huge front windscreen and no seatbelt. I feel a bit vulnerable. What if it loses its grip and we fall down a cliff? I

needn't worry, Mary's got great faith in her $400,000 machine and she's not about to risk it or her life. The steering wheel is a semi circle that moves the cat at the slightest touch and it has a switch in the middle for reverse, neutral and forwards. The cab looks a bit like an aeroplane cockpit with all its switches and levers. The only people left on the field are a couple of 'lifties' and ski patrol who are just sweeping the field for stragglers. The skifield looks as if a giant potato masher had been pounding it all day and it's the cat groomer's job to smooth it over ready for the next day's skiing. The cat's only groom marked trails, not the whole field as I had thought. We're grooming down one trail, crossing over to the chairlift's midstation and going up another trail back to the cafe. Our first 'matt', lap or track, looks like velvet compared to the rest of the field. As a general rule you don't push snow downhill with the blade, which I guess must have something to do with snow rolling on to matts that have already been groomed. The radio is blasting and Mary's got her headphones on so I've given up shouting to her. The sun is being quickly obscured by a dark bank

of cloud that's not going to disappear in a hurry, it's getting colder. Strong winds are forecast for later in the night, trust me to choose a night that's shaping up to be the worst in history. Richard, another cat driver is grooming further down, he and Mary aim to groom the majority of the field so that when the day shift , 1am to about 12pm, drivers come on they just have to groom the two TBars. Now it's dark and the wind is howling around the cab, its drizzling and the powerful lights on the

cat makes every drop sparkle. Mary uses a spotlight to see where her last matt was then lines up the front blade so it slightly overlaps it. She moves the snow around just to get an even surface, there's so much snow around this season it makes her job easy. She doesn't have to worry about hitting rocks or getting snow from far away to fill in holes. We talk non-stop about everything from sisters to jobs to boyfriends 'til my voice cracks and my throat hurts from shouting

above the noise of the cat. We stop for 'lunch' about 11pm in the ski patrollers' room attached to one of the cafes. Then it's back out into the darkness to finish. I decide to stay in the patrol room and drink tea, I've had enough of the noise and jolting of the cat. I'm having trouble staying awake. God knows how the drivers do it night after night, the monotony of following matt after matt going around in circles until the

area smooth is enough to send anyone to sleep. The spring snow is wet and slushy and on the way back down the tiller at the back of the cat keeps jamming. Mary gets irritated because she hasn't got time to waste unclogging tillers, this snow has slowed her grooming up enough already. The trails look different being so high up in the cat, huge wide open smooth spaces that would be a dream to ski down before anyone else. Mary finishes up about

12.30am and we drive down to the carpark where Richard's been waiting, jump into the ute and head down the mountain. I am dead tired and forgot to tuni my electric blanket on but I don't notice it. I've had an amazing night doing something few people not directly involved with the mountain get to do, and it made me realise a lot more goes into this skifield than meets the eye when you drive into the carpark at the start of a day's skiing.