Wednesday, 11:00AM. I'm finished with the patrol route and getting my bike wounds cared for in the infirmary. Manu calls. He's looking for a partner to road trip up north. A mate of his wants to ski a little club field called Mt Olympus and is driving seven hours from the north to meet us there. We head out about 6:30PM for the 6-hour drive. This is the Road Trip Chronicle.
The peloton is back in action, taking advantage of a calm spring day.
I make like Graham Watson, except I don't even roll down the window...
Driving past vineyards...
Getting out into some wider valleys, with a lot of farming. This is where some of our winter fruit comes from in North America.
These high valleys are known as the MacKenzie Country
Another panorama, taken the next morning where we camped out. The camera goes from l to r in a full circle, but you'll just see that there are dramatic hills all around.
Now we're driving up to the ski hill, with more vistas unfolding along the way
Heading up to snow line, looking down into the ravine we are perched above.
Getting up higher, looking back at the awersome river terrace filling the gap between those two hills.
There it is, up yonder (the snow!)
Here we are at last. The hut down there is. This is all open terrain. This is a club field. Rope tows, self-catering, no gift shop in the lodge. Just folks who ride snow. You pay a membership and then buy day tickets, but you also have to do work crews in the summer. Still, it's cheap and uncrowded, and when it's good, it can be really good. Plus you can hike all the terrain around the hill without anyone telling you it's out of bounds.
That's an area called Little Alaska. An easy hike, cool lines, and visible from the lodge: a great place to put up hero lines.
This panorama, turning l to r shows the bowl the lifts access, with many many lines just a short hike above
Mt Olympus itself on the left
Let's go!
This is Kinga, a friendly Polish girl who tagged along up the bootpack. She comes here a lot, but never skied up Little AK.
Looking back at Mt Olympus, behind Kinga.
Manu leads Ivor along the ridge to the top
Kinga and Ivor at the top
The Southern Alps stretching away to the horizon...
I wish I could sack up to ski this line. There's about 8“ of nice spring pow on it and it's only about 40 degrees, but narrow. The crux would be shooting between those two rocks lower down, seperated by about a meter only.
I skied to the side
Me on top, with that hallway to looker's left.
Pretty good snow!
Goood living at the lodge, taking a lunch break while the sun corns things up on the other side of the bowl.
All that terrain is open. I'm sure that cliff gets dropped in mid-winter on big pow days. That's Ivor soaking up the awesome spring day
Trail map. The lodge is in the middle of the bowl along the yellow line representing the lifts.
They also have plenty of costume material if you want to get dressed up and have a party. I wish 10th Mtn Huts had this amenity!
Don't moustache the Mona Lisa; spoon your tracks!
Being green can be fun!
Inside the lodge. There are bunks in back if you want to stay up here.
It's a pretty low-tech operation.
This is the liftie around here
This is the lift
That's a little thing called a nutcracker that grabs the rope and tows you up by your sit harness
When you pass the pulleys, the nutcracker goes !PANG! as it hits the wheel. Then at the top, you go up a steep hill, past two double pulleys and have about 10' to let go of the rope before you hit the emergency stop gate.
We meet Ivor, a scottish ex-pat who is friends with Manu and he drives us all up the road to the ski hill
Driving back down...
...to the lodge at Lake Ida.
We made ourselves at home in the abandoned lodge (there used to be lots of ice skating here) and had a good fry-up for dinner
Not a bad view either
The sun sets as we move from sausages to sushi
Looks like they have a fire going inside...
Kinga joined us for dinner and beers and we chatted late into the night...
Next day, the weather was cold, windy, and cloudy so we knew the skiing would suck. We headed east to Methven, on the edge of the Canterbury plains to have some coffee
Manu
The Raikoura river
The view.
The weather improved as we drove south...
Mt Hutt ski area
The Canterbury plains
I guess being a skier in Methven is like being a skier in Greeley (you can see the mountains, but they're a long drive), but there still are hardcores who do it.
An interesting part of NZ, in the rainshadow of the Southern Alps. It's very dry, but there are snowcapped peaks all around
Looking up lake Pukaki to Mt Cook (hidden in clouds as it is about 70% of the time)
Guess that's a bug spattered on the windscreen
It's called the Lakes District for huge lakes and known for snow-capped peaks
This dam holds back water for a hydro plant nearby. The workers who built the dam over a period of years settled nearby when the dam was finished.
Twizel...where Twizzlers come from!
Interesting erosion features along the highway between Omarama and Cromwell
Going through Cromwell again, hometown pride on display. Tourists for scale
We stopped at a roadside fruit stand, but of course nothing was in season, since this is early spring for them. A lot of the fruit was actually from the USA!
Typical roadside scene
