There is plenty of great skiing and snowboarding in New Zealand — if you can get to it. Getting up the access roads is more dangerous than the skiing.
The ski areas typically sit up on the top of mountains, like the Emerald City in "The Wizard of Oz," with perilous, winding roads leading up to them. Only real "nutters" will drive the "unsealed" (gravel) roads that require four-wheel drives with chains and a parachute (in case your car falls off the road).
The first place I went with my mates was Mt. Hutt. On one side of the road is the mountain and on the other side is nothing, absolutely nothing. The only thing between you and nothing is more nothing because there aren’t even any bloody guard rails. Thelma and Louise never would have made it to the top. I kept expecting to see Warren Miller at the next curve, camera rolling, to show the crazy things skiers will go through to get to fresh powder.
The second place we skied was a club field called Craigieburn Valley. The Craigieburn access road is a one-way road that would be more suitable as a bridal path. Forget the chains, install crampons instead. Hey, is that Warren Miller over there in the bushes? No, just some avalanche debris. When we finally reached the top, we found a 30-car parking lot. Apparently, they don’t expect many people to make it to the top.
The next place we skied was another club field called Mt. Olympus. Half-way up the access road, there was a place where all the cars had pulled off. Aha! This must be where the Warren Miller interviews take place! Nope. This is where you have to radio up to the top to see if it is safe enough to continue — this is avalanche country. Signs are posted throughout, like an animal safari park, telling you to keep your car moving at all times because of avalanche danger. Skier’s Russian Roulette.
Forty minutes later, the road just stopped and the ski area was right there in front of us. There wasn’t even a bloody parking lot! You just park your car on the side of the road and hope it hasn’t fallen off by the time you get back.
We had excellent skiing every day and Mt. Olympus was no exception. The drive up was certainly worth it. Getting down, however, proved to be harder than getting up. While we were skiing, two avalanches had fallen across the road so we had to wait two hours before they were cleared away. We were lucky though. In the past, others had been snowed in for up to seven days.
So if you go on a ski trip to New Zealand, here’s a tip one of the locals told me. Add to your ski gear an extra pair of underwear.