Chairlift de-icers are heroes of the skifield

Waimarino Bulletin, Volume 4, Issue 8, 22 July 1986, Page 24

Chairlift de-icers are heroes of the skifield

Chairlifts on Turoa Skifields will be open when the first skier arrives each day this season, thanks to a group of Turoa staff who will deice the lifts from 5am in the morning. Previously, the public had to wait for the chairlifts to open while lift operators deiced the facilities. Now, there will be five people, along with senior lift controller, Rob Finlayson. with the specific job of de-icing. High on the mountain, wind, rain and cloud quickly turn to ice on chairlifts, chair wheels and the cable which carries the chairs along. If the facilities are not deiced, they could not operate. Then more ice would form making de-icing even harder and placing a huge weight on the tows. Rob Finlayson, who has been de-icing at Turoa for five seasons, said ice 30cm thick on the one kilometre long jumbo T-bar cable would put on extra weight of 200 tonnes on to the cable! "Because this mountain is so isolated from others, it gets a lot of high wind and moisture. It's like a coastal climate and it gets the wet air from the Tasman," he said. i Turoa is reputed to be the worst ski area in New Zealand, possibly in the world, for ice, according to Rob. In r most other areas, the snow was much drier. De-icing means beating

the ice with a pick handle, better known as a "yeti stick". To get to the chairlift wheels, they clamber up the ladder on the huge towers, "It can be dangerous ... sometimes you're climbing the tower in 60 knot winds and on a bad day you can spend up to three-quarters of an hour on one tower," said Rob. While belting the ice with their Yeti sticks with one hand, they are holding on tight to the ladder with the other. Rob said it was impractiable to wear a belt which secured the de-icer to the tower, because of the need to keep moving and dodge falling lumps of ice. Saftey helmets are also out as they inhibit vision. There have been a few accidents but Rob says they have been fairly minor. Ice begins to accumulate on equipment in early May and continues to grow from then until August. Rob and the summercrew were de-icing. beforc the sea-

son started but as there was no pressure to finish for the lifts to open. on time. they started work around 8am. From the beginning of the ski season. the crew have been starting work at 5am and will continuc for six weeks. After that time they will be on call. "You start to wonder 'what am I doing here'," he said. Rob said ice comes in spurts. Sometimes de-icing is needed several days in a row, followed by several days respite. At other times de-icing will not be necessary for several weeks. One time Rob said they spent seven full days de-icing. But once the lifts were working Rob said it was worth it. "Even if the public don't understand what we've been doing." Surely doing such a repetitive, unrecognised job would be unrewarding, so does anyone actually enjoy the job?

Rob said the iob suited outdoor types but not everyone enjoyed it at first. "Lots of new people loathe the job, all that climbing up towers in bad weather in high winds. But after a while you enjoy it in a perverse sort of way." Rob said he liked the job because of the element of danger. Rob described the eerie feeling of working on the mountain during early morning when it was still dark. "It's quiet, there 's no noise from the lifts. It's a feeling of vast open space - quite spookyin the wind," he said. Torches, head lamps and the lights on snow grooming machines illuminate the darkness. But the snow provides a contrast against which you can see other things. Turoa Skifields employed a specialised de-icing crew until 1980 when there was more ice on the mountain. After that it was up to the lift operators. But as lifts were opening too late it was decided to restart the crew.