Club Field Holiday

Last weekend we took a couple of days off work and travelled up to Arthur's Pass, northwest of Christchurch to check out a few of the Canterbury club fields. These are small ski fields run by groups of like-minded people who found a good spot and decided to put in some rope tows. They vary from very basic rope tows with the notoriously difficult and well named "nutcrackers" to slightly more technologically advanced fields with t-bars. Even those with t-bars have limited grooming and therefore the snow can be a bit variable, but the atmosphere is great and queues are non-existent.

We stayed at Flock Hill Station, which is a working farm with a variety of different accommodation options including the self contained cottages we were in. Fantastic scenery and only 10 minutes drive to the bottom of the access roads for Mt Cheeseman, Craigieburn and Broken River, and just a few minutes more to Porters and Temple Basin.

On Saturday we went to the Mt Cheeseman club field. There had been some fresh snow on Thursday night/Friday morning but when we arrived on Saturday at 10am (to find a total of 20 other cars there), the soft snow had been replaced with sheet ice. So after an initial run we waited until after lunch for the sun to soften the snow. We had a few good runs in the afternoon including one into the back bowls where we found a few pockets of untouched powder. It was near vertical in places and a decent long run with only a couple of hundred metres vertical to hike back out.

On Sunday we decided to take a trip through Arthur's Pass itself to Greymouth and back again as the previous day's high temperatures had not helped the snow conditions.

Arthur's Pass is spectacular. If you haven't done it yet, put it on your list. Here's a taste of the scenery:

One of the little lakes just past Flock Hill Station:

River Delta just before the middle of Arthur's Pass:

Only slightly less impressive than the scenery - the amazing feats of engineering. This is the world-famous-in-New-Zealand Otira Viaduct:

And while we were at the Otira look out we were greeted by a very photogenic Kea. We had to chase him away from the car a few times - we're pretty sure he was eyeing up the wiper blades 8888888888888888888888888888888888885 (the last intelligent contribution courtesy of Burton walking across the keyboard - maybe he was eyeing up the kea...)

On Monday due to the snow still being spring conditions we headed across to Mt Hutt (about an hour's drive away) for some great spring riding. We had a fantastic day experiencing the luxury of groomed slopes and high speed chair lifts, and again with no queues. It was a warm sunny day - no warm jackets required! One guy was even skiing in shorts and a singlet top but we weren't quite that keen.