Some of Whakapapa's people behind your good day's skiing

Ruapehu Bulletin, Volume 13, Issue 593, 4 July 1995, Page 4 (Supplement)

Some of Whakapapa's people behind your good day's skiing

Ski Patrol Doctor Peter Boyd-Wilson is one of two ski patrol doctors employed by Ruapehu Alpine Lifts. He has been a doctor for 1 1 years and came to Whakapapa because he loves the alpine area. Peter says that being a good skier was not a requirement when he applied for the job. Peter' s week consists of three and a half days in the clinic at the Top of the Bruce, and one and a half days on skis attending injuries. A typical day at the clinic starts at 7.45am. There is a staff clinic between 8am and 9am where he treats staff with minor ailments and injuries from the previous day. He deals with the general public from 9am till 1 1am. "Usually it's those who wake up in the morning and can't move, and expect a cure so they can go skiing in the afternoon". The rest of the day is spent treating the current day's injuries. Peter is supposed to work until 5pm. "That' s if we get the normal number of patients (20), but on a bad day there' s anything up to 55 patients and I have worked to 6.45pm — that's an 1 1 hour day." Most injuries occur in the school holidays or late in the day when people are tired. They are commonly thumb sprains or medial ligament knee sprains and take between five minutes and two hours to treat (depending on the locality of the accident). The accident rate on Whakapapa is 5.6 skiers per 1000 skiers which is slightly higher than the national average, but this can be accounted for when you consider that Whakapapa hosts many more skiers on a daily basis than any other ski field. Peter says skiing is a safe sport compared to rugby or league where the injury rate is much higher. The first skier fatality on Whakapapa for a decade occurred last year and it was a heart attack — not something that could be blamed on the sport. Being a ski patrol doctor is not all injuries according to Peter — he said it definitely has it's lighter moments — like the time an escaped psychiatric patient decided to go skiing. And what does a ski patrol doctor do during the summer months? There is plenty to keep Peter busy: he goes to

Australia to work in an accident and emergency department, or travels around as a locum. Lifty Aaron Townsend once went for a walk to the Taranaki Falls, and ended up staying at Whakapapa for the season - that was five years ago. Aaron says it takes great patience and humour to be a lifty — you have to be able to withstand adverse weather Turn to Page 8

Some of Whakapapa's people behind your good day's skiing

conditions all day long, all season long. If you're going to see the season through as a lifty, it helps if you're an outdoors person and a people person. "A lot of people give me grief" says Aaron, but he sees his role as lifty as being the "mood setter." Gone are the days, before the 80s, when New Zealand lifties' sole focus was on the mountain and the machines and they had reputations for rudeness that would rival a French waiter's. When to ask how you got on a T-bar was to invite a lesson "excuse my French" type foul language. "I portray happiness and people pick up on that and it makes their day better, the happier they are the easier it is for them to enter and exit a chair". For those who are terrified of the chairlift (usually adults) Aaron has some fail-safe advice — "just close your eyes" and usually they do!. . Aaron' s working day starts at 7.45am when he and the

other lifties clean out the rubbish bins and set up tables. At 8.30am they go and start the rope tows and the chairlifts and shovel away snow that is impeding access ways. From 8.30am to 4.45pm the lifties assist people on and off chairlifts and T-bars, with a one hour lunch break somewhere in between. In the off-season Aaron is a joiner by trade, otherwise you'll find him on the beach "thinking about the snow". Aaron flats in National Park where a lot of the Whakapapa staff live. "You get to know a lot of people" says Aaron, "Good people work on the mountain". Race Coach/Snowboard Instructor Roger Wyrsch is Swiss and ended up at Whakapapa while he was "seeing some of the world". By 1990 he was a fully certified snowboard instructor, the first snowboard instructor on Whakapapa. He learnt in 1 985 in S witzerland

at a time when the sport was almost unheard of here. Roger says the first snowboarders were in the late 1970's in Switzerland. In 1991 Roger used to teach one person a week to snowboard, now 20 to 30 people a day are wanting to learn. To supplement his income in those lean days of snowboarding Roger coached the Whakapapa Race T eam, now this is his full time job as well as general ski instruction. At 7.45am you'll find Roger in his office doing paperwork. At 9am he meets the kids he is going to instruct that day. From 10am to 3.30pm he gives three lessons or coaches his team depending on whether it's the school holidays or not. Roger says that it is harder to coach in New Zealand as the mountain is more often closed than in Switzerland, and so the kids don't get to put in as much time each day as their Swiss counterparts do.

Another noticeable difference between working on a ski field in Switzerland and Whakapapa is the staff in Switzerland tend to be Swiss, while here they tend to be from all around the world. Roger has worked back to back winters for the past five years, with two weeks in Hawaii in between. When he works at Whakapapa he stays in National Park. "I used to stay at the staff quarters (near the Chateau Tongariro) and it was great there - we used to party hard, everyone was just like a family." Why does he keep coming back? "I' ve had some good years on this mountain, although last year was tough". Last year the mountain was closed for many days due to bad weather, and as the instructors only get paid for the hours that they work. Roger assures us that being a ski Wait, there's more! See page 18

Some of Whakapapa's people behind your good day's skiing

From page 8 instructor is not at all glamorous when the mountain is shut. Grooming Crew Mark Hewitt has been driving a cat and grooming snow for the past 12 years, in Canada, at Turoa, and at Whakapapa where he has . worked for the past three seasons. To train to be a snow groomer Mark spent 40 hours in the workshop and 40 hours driving the Cat while under the supervision of a qualified driver. The snow groomers come out at night when all others have called it a day. One shift runs from 3pm till 1 .30 am, and the graveyard shift starts at 1am and lasts until 12.30pm. The first thing a cat driver does is check his/ her machine before setting off to the bottom slopes where a lot of snow is pushed around or relocated so as to cover the rocks. Then Mark grooms the trails. He says the principle of snow grooming is much like mowing the lawns: "You just go up and down trying not to miss a patch, and trying not to overlap where you've just been". Mark says the biggest hazard facing a snow

groomer is vertigo — when a cat driver cannot differentiate between whether the machine is moving or the snow beneath the cat is moving. A driver can suffer from vertigo while in a white out, more often in the day time because there is

no contour of the mountain to compare with the sky. Snow groomers become very familiar with the ski fields they tend, knowing every track, every curve, every rock that could cause a machine problems, every drop-off that has to be avoided. "I know Whakapapa like the back of my hand" says Mark. Marketing assistant Nicole Bayes is the marketing assistant for RAL this season. Her background is in journalism and public relations. She says that in this job her background is a real asset but the main requirements are.to be: really well organised, to be a people person, to have initiative, and be really well informed about what's going on all the time. She starts work at 6.30am

twice a week for live radio reports - up to 20 daily, and the other days she starts at 7.45am. Her job involves administration, handling mediainquiries, radio reports, organising events such as those that are part of the Montana Winter Festival, attending snow shows, fielding general queries, and supporting Scott Lee, the marketing manager. After this season she hopes

to stay in the district and get involved in the summer programme. How does she find the lifestyle here after living in Auckland? "Well it is really slow, there is no supermarket and you have to travel long distances to get any where - but you get used to it. It' s good to live somewhere where the lifestyle is slow when you have a full on job".