Even though I don't have income, I've already got a season pass for Ruapehu, so I need to ensure that the $350 I spent on it last November doesn't go to waste.
With that in mind, Ken and I headed down to the mountain on Thursday. At that stage, Whakapapa only had the learner slopes open, so we went to Turoa, even though it's a bit further.
Since one of their lifts is bung, Turoa only had two chairs operating (Movenpick and High Flyer), but that was enough for a first day.
Here's Mount Egmont/Taranaki in the distance (you might be able to see it if you click for big):
Here's what the field down from the top cafe looked like:
One of the reasons we went was to test out our gear, which included helmets each for the first time ever:
This will probably mean fewer head injuries, but more broken bones as the helmets will spur us to ski far outside our abilities.
Plenty of snow on the upper mountain:
. . . but we couldn't get to it due to the bung chairlift. They made good use of the nice day to get almost the entire tower rebuilt though. Here's the helicopter they use to ferry bits of tower up:
Here's a panorama:
A few people turned up, but the queue never got much bigger than this:
This here's pretty much what we skied all day - not huge, but just right for making sure we could still do it:
Bloody good start to the season.
4 comments:
Looks like a good time was had for the helmet launching for you both.
Refreshing post to read during London's heat wave (usually it would be called summer but it's become a rarity). Going to go stand in front of an open fridge now.
All we need now is the Live Feed from the helmet cam!
that sugary white stuff looks boootiful and it all looks like fun!
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