Douglas Cochrane
The ultimate cachet for a skier is to ski internationally – preferably somewhere exotic.
I got my chance last September when my wife and I visited New Zealand on business. A business client of ours likes to ski and invited us to spend a long weekend with his family in Queenstown. Queenstown is a charming resort town on Lake Wakatipu in the central part of the South Island.
Diehard skiers can ski Down Under from May until early October then hurry back to the Northern Hemisphere for another winter of fun. Many New Zealand youth work at their local ski areas then come to the U.S. and man the lifts and cafeteria lines of our ski areas. Endless winter!
September Down Under is their early spring. It was weird going from the fall leaves of Oregon to early daffodils in one 14-hour flight. But as every skier knows, spring skiing can be the best. We checked into our hotel and rented gear at a fine little shop on the main drag of the village. The young woman who helped us – an avid skier – was from South Africa.
The next morning we drove around the lake to the entry road to the Remarkable Mountains. I made the mistake of offering to pay for the gas, which cost $1.75 per liter. It cost almost $75 to fill our friend’s small car. And we complain about gas at $3 a gallon! The road to the ski area was pretty remarkable itself. Once we left the highway it was well-maintained gravel and climbed at a remarkable pitch.
New Zealand is a young land geologically so the mountains are far steeper and more rugged even than our Cascade Mountains. Many are still active volcanoes.
After approximately 100 switchbacks we arrived at the Remarkable ski area. Compared to the average modern ski areas of the U.S., the Remarkables was a bit rustic with a quaint older lodge and slow chair lifts. It isn’t a big area, having only 220 acres served by lifts and just over 1,000 vertical feet of drop. (Compare this with Mt. Bachelor, which has 3,500 acres of skiable terrain in-bounds and is 3,400 vertical feet from summit to base.)
But once we left the base, the comparisons were entirely the other way. What amazing terrain! Young mountains equal steep mountains and the Remarkables are steep enough to satisfy the death wish of the youngest, bravest, craziest, and most experienced skiers and boarders. I saw boulders lying under the chairlift that looked like they just rolled off the peaks – but were bigger than a house. Imagine skiing around such behemoths!
The most remarkable part of the experience was that when we got high on the mountain we could see the valley floor far, far below. New Zealand is where they filmed the Lord of the Rings and the valley floor looked just like Hobbitland. It is so green and groomed with tidy hedgerows defining the fields.
New Zealand is a lovely country any time – but be sure to schedule your trip during our summer or early fall so you can take advantage of the great skiing. You won’t be disappointed.
Douglas Cochrane is a former ski patrol member who lives in Yachats. He writes monthly for The New Era on skiing during the winter months. E-mail him at [email protected].