Grooming the best

Ruapehu Bulletin, Volume 12, Issue 551, 30 August 1994, Page 9 (Supplement)

Grooming the best

Grooming techniques are better than ever, with record snow giving the cat team a chance to carve out excellent ski trails from the top to the bottom of the skifield. Grooming Supervisor, Murray McErlich, says skiers this season are benefitting from a combination of experienced drivers, the best mechanics in the country, additional grooming hours, improved techniques and an excellent snow base. A crew of 13 cat drivers - who have already chalked up more than 3000 hours driving this season - and a four person digger and trailer crew work the slopes seven days a week 24 hours a day. The digger and trailer are being fully utilised, moving huge pockets of snow and carting it three to four hundred metres for the cat crews to work with. Work time for each machine has been boosted this season to approximately 140 hours a week. Time out for machine servicing and maintenance is down to three percent thanks to the team of three mechanics who Murray believes are the best in Australasia. Most of the drivers have worked on the field for a number of seasons and adjust to the latest techniques for "catching more snow" to suit the rugged unique terrain of the magic mountain. The amount of snow has given the crew more scope than last season ad they are looking forward to grooming more, wider trails, and finding locations for new trails. And while eight seasons at Whakapapa have made Murray McErlich wary about predictions... he is confident the expertise of the grooming team and snow conditions will see top to bottom skiing for most of the season.