More Memories Craigieburn

Craigieburn Valley car park on a typically
busy weekday. Hamilton Peak on the right
Remarkable Ridge on the left

The photos are from a ski trip in 2009 but I spent a week in the Craigieburn Range in New Zealand every year from 2004 until we moved to Germany in 2010. The Range is one of my favorite places to ski  and the club ski fields that dot the Range make it very special.  Great terrain, cheap, and rope tows that scare off all but the most committed. If you look at Craigieburn Valley Ski Club, it is amazing how much terrain can be accessed with single rope combined with some boot packing and skinning.  Together with the nearby Broken River Ski Club you have amazing slack country with very few skiers and all for NZD $75 per day (although I was shocked when I checked the price for this post as when I last skied there is was closer to $50) You can tour down the Range to near Cheeseman and on to Olympus, a trip I am very keen to do when I move back to the Southern Hemisphere. For anyone who is intereted, get a copy of New Zealand Backcountry Skiing, a great guide produced by the NZ Alpine Club.

Geoffroy, my French friend, coming to terms with
the rope tow. Its not Val d'isere froggy boy!
 Note the old Tua's

The key to the club fields are the rope tows. Using a farm tractor on blocks in a corrugated iron shed to power a rope, the skier is hauled up the slopes by a "nut cracker" which is attached to a harness worn by the skier.  The nutcracker is a metal clamp which you clamp over the rope to enable the skier to stay on the rope as you are pulled up the steep slopes.  Needless to say there is a real art to attaching yourself to the fast moving rope  while maintaining balance and ensuring that you don't feed your fingers through the first of the fixed pulleys that guide the rope.  It is a little intimidating and can be difficult for boarders. The upside is that the rope is not wind affected like chair lifts, it is easy to maintain with parts available from the local farm machinery store, it is fast, runs on about 70 litres of diesel per day and scares off the punters. Whats not to love!

Once you manage to get up the rope tow, there is an amazing selection of runs. Big bowls, tight chutes and open faces, it is all there.  From the top of the rope tow at Craigieburn, you can climb Hamilton Peak and drop into the Broken River Valley but don't forget your transciever, shovel and probe and any other avi gear that you may like to carry.  Catch the Broken River rope tow, which is free on the Craigieburn Valley pass, and then head back to Craigieburn but not after a little climb.

Kicking steps back up to the col between
Craigieburn and Broken River

Adding French elegance to the NZ backcountry

Enjoying the wide open spaces

Kicking steps out the back of Mt Cheesman...

I am a "dirt bag" skier and although the accommodation at the club field far from expensive on a world scale, I prefer to set up camp at Arthur's Pass. There is not much to write home about regarding Arthur's Pass.  It is a tiny railway town with a Department of Conservation Office, two pubs, a general store and a New Zealand Alpine Club hut.  At the hut, for the princely sum of NZD $15 per day, an Alpine Club member can have a bed in dorm room, kitchen facilities and a hot shower.  If you do your shopping in a supermarket in Christchurch then you have everything you need for a cheap ski week. The hut is mostly deserted in winter, that said, it can be little bit of cold box at times which probable contributes to its popularity in winter.  

...with not another skier in sight

Apart from being cheap it gives you the advantage of reviewing the weather forecast and selecting the best of the club fields without being stuck on any particular hill.  Temple Basin often has different weather to Craigieburn/Broken River which in turn has different weather to Olympus.  Combined with a cheap second hand Japanese import hire car and you have the perfect way to access the club field and the surrounding mountains.       

Anyhow, I hear that there has been a big system hit the South Island of NZ and based on the webcams it looks like a good start to the season.  I wish I had the chance to get down there this season but I don't see it happening.