ABOVE THE SNOWLINE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 21, Issue 532, 2 September 1949, Page 18

ABOVE THE SNOWLINE

NZBS Tape-Recorder at Ski Championships.

, WO hundred people went up to Arthur’s Pass on Sunday, | August 14, and among them on the excursion train from Christchurch were four members of the local staff of the NZBS,. with a ‘tape-recorder. That week-end representatives of various Canterbury Ski Clubs were competing for the Canterbury Ski Championships at Temple Basin. \Skiing had been one of the few New Zealand sports which had received no direct attention from radio, and it seemed a good time to make a start. The Christchurch Ski Club, whose headquarters are at Temple Basin, cooperated willingly with the NZBS staff, and it was more than vocal co-opera-tion. To build their hut and ski-tow, club members have, over the past 15 years, packed nearly 20 tons of material on their backs from the road to the hut, a climb of 1,500 feet. Some of the individual loads have been as much as 1201b. So the transport of a few batteries for the tape-recorder was accepted as commonplace. The tape-recorder and box weigh about 40lb. The technician in charge, who had had no previous experience of load-carrying in rough country, put on a bold aspect, put one foot in front of the other up the hill for an hour and a-half, and arrived in good order. He deserved all the compliments he received. ; A one-time ski-ing companion and I had appointed ourselves honorary historical background consultants to the

broadcasting party. We hadn’t been up to Temple Basin for 11 years, during which period we had led, under different sets of ‘circumstances, fairly sedentary lives. To put it baldly, we didn’t know whether we still had enough wind for the climb. WE got out of the car at the .top of the Pass. It was sleeting. Patches of snow lay about, alternating with patches of mud; the wind searched our resurrected clothing, finding the moth holes and the long unmended tears. The Temple spur rose above us, disappearing into the mist, no skyline in sight at all. We broke it gently to the three members of the broadcasting party who didn’t know the locality that we had to walk up there into the mist, over the skyline we couldn’t see, to a hut and ski ground whose existence we were beginning to doubt. Eleven years is a long time. The feet and knees and the long thigh muscles had their stored memories. They still knew how to accommodate themselves to hill walking, and after a while the breathing started to synchronize with their movements. It was much easier than we had feared. The track was practically a highroad, with fixed wire ‘here and there on ‘steep places. We strolled up quietly, unloaded, in an hour and twenty minutes, into sunshine and gentle snow showers at the hut level. The hut was lafger, but it still smelt the same; ski wax, kerosene, wet socks, wet wood, drying blankets. We were a (continued on next page) ;

(continued from previous page) little dubious about going in. The faces were unfamiliar; who were we, ignorant, anonymous day trippers to mingle with these crisp, coached, competent skiers? We hung about diffidently, saying in hushed voices that we never knew that nowadays so many people could ski so much better than we had ever dreamed of becoming in those far off times when coaching came from books and hearsay. HE technicians set up their gear; the programme people dangled a microphone the size and shape of a toffee apple in front of club officials, who stared into the middle distance and said their pieces laboriously. Ski-ing terms are rather esoteric. It isn’t much good describing in detail a course set for a giant slalom race, when the resulting programme will be heard by people who don’t know much about ski-ing, but the idea of the roped teams race was one that could be put across more universally. We took the gear up to.a spot near the ski-tow shed, where the teams race was to finish. There were three members to a team, roped together. They ran on parallel courses, marked by pairs of flags through

which they had to turn. The slope was! steep. Anything could happen. The commentator, a club official; took a deep breath, knitted his brow, and concentrated on the progress of the two teams who had started about 300 feet above. The teams weaved, wound and entangled; separated, merged again, indulged in a little light-hearted infringement of the rules and staggered over the finishing line, calling for witness that they would never compete in another roped race. The leader of the winning team was interviewed, and there was optimistic talk about televising the Canterbury Ski Championships of 1954. WE packed the gear, had a cup of tea and some Christchurch Ski Club food, and paddled off down the spur with that gingerly, duck-like gait necessity seems to dictate on snow slopes. The day was finished for the honorary background advisers, but the NZBS staff had a good deal of writing, editing and recording to .do before their programme could be put over the air, It had snowed, and early the promise had been unpleasant, but everyone, even the technician in charge with his 40-pound tape-recorder, voted the day well spent. Something new had been added to New

Zealand radio.

G. leF.

Y.