Mountain Top Hop

In August 2006 New Zealand played host to the Burton Open World Snowboarding Comp in Wanaka, and the UCI Mountain Biking World Championships in Rotorura. Typical to my poor fortune or actually if I’m honest my poor planning, I was going to miss them both. Either i was not far enough south in time or not far enough north, never did work it out. Even so August was my month to tour ski fields and MTB trails all across NZ, and in the doing I devoured a delicious slice of New Zealands landscape and conditions, met and rode with the locals and more often than not enjoyed moments of sublime mountaintop elation, whizzing through some of the most eye watering scenery I’ve ever whizzed through . What follows is part diary, and part personal reminder of the happy month of August 2006.

Mt Ruapehu – Turoa Ski Fields
JAFAs was a new phrase to me when I arrived in Ohakune and set about looking for a place to stay. But I soon saw why the locals referred to the towns weekends guests as ‘Just Another Fuckin’ Aucklander’. No Vacancy signs all across town led me to the rooms of very good and infinitely more organised friends who provided sofas in such hours of need.
The perfect weather had contributed to the weekend population surge, and as we queued for over 10 minutes for the first lift of the day I realised I, as a gentleman of leisure, should have come mid week. Still, a view of the distant snowcapped peak of Mt. Taranaki floating over 50 miles away, above a sea of low hanging cloud helped distract us as we shuffled to the chair. Soon enough we were pelting down our first few kiwi pistes (or trails as they call them here – ask for the best piste round here and you get directed to the toilets in the café) and smiles began to widen.
I’d been told not to expect too much, that ‘this isn’t Europe’, that the number of runs was ‘limited’, by so many people that I was actually pretty impressed with the variety of trails at Turoa. Some mindless motorway runs admittedly, but some nice blacks off the back and a bit of a lark in the park kept me more than happy all day. Topped off with a hot spa and cold beers and my Kiwi ski odyssey was well under way.

Wellington -Mt Victoria MTB Trails
Started out as just a warm up roadride to test the extent of my unfitness and to get a bit more used to my bike which still felt like wearing somebody elses shoes. Out of Wellington on Oriental Drive, which takes you along the sea front, past the executive flatlets, and round the peninsular about 10miles to the very southern tip of the North Island.
However, a combination of the sunshine, my growing happiness at being out on the bike again and, perhaps most importantly the fact i got proper lost and kept going round in circles trying to find this trail i was looking for, meant it ended up being quite a draining trip. And by the time i finally got to Mt Victoria's inner city MTB tracks, i was too knackered to do much on them. Still It was a beginning.

Nelson – Hira Forest MTB Park

Paul came with me on this one. He'd never ridden a decent offroad trail before. As we snaked out of Nelson he belted off and i didn't see him for about 20 minutes. Passed him wheezing about 1 km into the 7km ascent which started the ride i had planned, he spluttered he never wanted to go mountain biking again. I think he liked the down bit though. The locals had cut a couple of sweet singletracks into the hills and through the woods. It was boggy and slippy. I had a succession of falls culminating in a crack on the shin and the trickle of warm blood. Once went riding with a guy said that its not a propper injury until the blood reached your sock. 'Finally', i thought, as my sock filled with the sticky red stuff, 'a wound to be proud of'.

Fox Glacier to Gillespie Beach
For a ride so short on singletrack I was amazed with how exciting I found the day. Perfect weather splashed bold colour on the walls of the world, bright blue skies as the base coat with the lush greens of the native rainforests covering the mountainsides right down to the sea, and the bright whites and pale blue of the snow and the slowly advancing Fox Glacier.
The first 10km was an easy warm up; flat, straight and empty sealed roads ran towards Matheson Lake and one of the most famous panoramas in NZ. I'd pumped my tyres up rock solid and they buzzed on the tarmac, my heart slowly sped up as I rushed to the lake, not wanting to turn and look back until just the right moment. When that moment came a ludicrously perfect view of Mt Cooks pointy peak mirrored in the still waters was mine and mine alone. I sat by the lake for over half an hour and didn't see another soul. Just the calmness of the lake and the majesty of the peak. Cycling along I tried to remember the beauty I’d been moved by just five minutes previously but found I was being distracted from my reveries by everything around me, the present blocking out the past. Sunlight shards dispersed by fingers of enormous tree ferns, mist rising through the flax from the surface of the lake, flocks of ducks breaking the glassy surface. All this and I appear to be the only person around for miles in any direction, i greedily hoarded it.
The second half of the track rose through low hills, the sealed road giving way to hard packed gravel, twisting and turning round the contours until the apex was reached and the swift flowing decent began. I could smell the salt air reach me, though the canopy of the rain forest refused me a view of the Tasman sea until the last minute when the unwelcome forigner gourse bushes parted and a vast beach showed in sea mist stretched out in either direction and into the distance.
I sat eating my sandwiches, looking down the length of the coastline and not wanting to have my back to the imposing mountain range to my right or the powerful crashing surf to my left. There have been moments in my travels when I’ve hungered for someone to share a sunset with, a partner to marvel at a mountain with. But today, on that desolate beach I worshiped my solitude. I smiled, I sang, I talked to the driftwood and the flat pebbles I’d carefully piled on top of each other. I felt profoundly affected by my surroundings, I felt lucky to be the one that was there on that beach at that moment, and my elation continued to soar as late in the afternoon I glided back down the tracks through the strobing sunlight and shadow of the forest. On a day like today, in country this powerful, with weather this perfect, I can do without the singletrack.

Wanaka - Treble Cone Ski Fields

Pictures

Wanaka Plantation MTB Park
Speak

Queenstown – The Remarkables Ski Fields

A thousand

Queenstown - Moke Loop via Arthers Point

Words

Hamner Springs – Jollies/Jakes Pass Loop
A ride that basically went up remourselessly for over two hours, on a 4x4 track through the Douglas Fir plantation, above the snow line, round the back of the mountain and back down the other side. The decent took about ten minutes of tear jerking, sphincter clenching, winding mountain track. It was ridicously cold, i should have worn leggings and was worried about getting stuck up there after dark as i'd not set off until after 3. By the time i got back to the bottom my hands were white and so numb i couldn't hit the brakes and the brake disks were red hot and smelling of disintergrating pads. It took over a quarter of an hour in the 32 degree thermal pools back in Hamner before i could feel my feet again.

Mt Lyford Club Ski Fields
Our reasons for skiing the small and unrenouned Mt Lyford originated entirely from a moment of misguided philanthropy. I’d picked up plenty of hitch hikers before without cause for regret, but as soon as Jen, a Greenpeace tin shaker from Washington DC plonked her substancial weight into the back seat and opened her mouth, I had Paul giving me sideways glances which continued all the way to snowy lake Tekapo.
We took the Mt Lyford 2 for 1 voucher from her as payment, so as to at least gain something from the experience and next day headed north in search of our next ski field.
Conditions looked good at 6:30 in the morning, or as good as anything can look at such a ridiculous hour. We had arranged a shuttlebus up the top and a good thing too as the ole van would have never made it half way, on a good day, with a following wind, snow chains or no chains. We arrived after a half hour groaning ascent, at the emptiest ski field I’ve ever seen. The 10 of us in the bus made up half the people there and as we spread out around the different trails it was like having your own mountain and gave it a friendly local vibe where chats on lifts ended in skiing with strangers or ski buddies for the day.
And though the button and Tbar offered only limited options we loosened up our limbs happily and explored all the opportunities for cutting offpiste. When adrenaline dwindled we hit the little terrain park to be the first off the newly built kickers and by 11 theyed opened the back breaking rope tow to the top and 5 or 6 devilishly steep powder options reared into view. Only partially tracked out, I spent the rest of the day making my squiggily mark on this strange deserted mountainside before the clouds came down, the light got flat, and bringing a very real closure to my S. Island ski trip, I mistimed a landing, lost a ski and ground my poor fragile frame into the snow. Game over, time for a hot Milo. Small ski fields with no one on them can be big fun.

Napier - Eskdale MTB Park

Whirinaki Forest MTB Trail

Rotorua – Whakarewarewa Forest MTB Trails

Auckland – Woodhill MTB Park