Skiing stalwarts at Whakapapa

Waimarino Bulletin, Volume 4, Issue 18, 30 September 1986, Page 16

Skiing stalwarts at Whakapapa

They used to call it Veterans' Week, then it was Geriatric Week, and now it is more tactfully known as Club Week. Whatever the name it means the same. It's a time for older members of Ruapehu Ski Club to get together on the mountain for their own special week. They can ski a bit, talk over the old times or just look wistfully through the lodge's huge windows at the snow and the skiers. For a club which now has around 1600 members Club Week gives older members a chance to relax among their friends who can remember back to simpler times. Jim McComish. now patron of the club and previously president several times, has been around since 1 930 and skied until he had a knee replacement in 1982. He remembers the fabled Time Before the Tows, almost unthinkable to today's skiers, pampered by chairlifts and T-bars. Jim and many of his fellows were used to walking up, at first from the Chateau area, and later from the top of the Bruce Road. Many of those at this year's Club Day can recall getting in five or six glacier runs a day, each one preceded by a long walk on skis and skins. A favourite was a pre-dawn jaunt to the top to see the sunrise followed by a ski down for breakfast. Dudley Adams, in his 80s and still skiing, was also present last week. He introduced many an Auckland Grammar boy to the mountain over the years, including Sir Edmund Hilary. Ed helped carry materials for the Ruapehu Ski Club hut built in 1935. Murray Laird, a past president of the club, came up as a schoolboy with Dudley in 1941. For the old-timers it was a grand week, with morning coffee and pikelets, good company and good conversation. They have earned their Club Week.