Josh Martin is a London-based Kiwi journalist and avid skier.
OPINION: Only last week I was begrudging a bad investment in a lifetime pass to Ruapehu – wasted money because, I thought, by the time I relocate back to New Zealand in a few years’ time, skiing and snowboarding on the mountain would be too dicey thanks to climate change. I hadn’t expected my prophecy to arrive so soon.
There it was in my inbox: The non-profit company that runs the lifts had gone to the wall. Ruapehu Alpine Lifts (RAL) entering voluntary administration is a hammer blow to generations of ski enthusiasts and will leave the Central Plateau without a key winter destination and employer.
Sadly, it’s not entirely surprising. Senior executives rightly blamed the Covid pandemic lockdowns and closed borders, followed by a season of very poor weather, as the final nail in the coffin for the company.
READ MORE:
* Troubled Ruapehu skifields put into administration, owing millions to Government
* Ruapehu skifield operator placed in voluntary administration
* Perfect powder over Ruapehu a ‘cruel irony’ after Tūroa ski field closes
* The ski pass that is the worst $4000 I’ve ever spent
* Ruapehu ski season fizzles out with both Tūroa and Whakapapa shutting by end of October
Cut off from Government cash and without new investment to dig it out of a $30million debt, boxed in by the restrictions of operating within a National Park and World Heritage Site and topped off with the unavoidable effects of climate change, RAL quite literally saw any chance of survival – let alone turning a profit – melt away.
It’s the latter challenge – a warming New Zealand – that’ll spook any potential investors looking for a resurrection. Governments can be lobbied, councils hit up for (more) cash, local iwi brought onboard, but there’s no bargaining with the climate.
And, although I’ve put the boot into RAL before, there’s no Schadenfreude here. Whether you’re a Life Pass holder, a uni student with a season pass, a retiree who burned down the slopes for free, tourists or a family of first timers, a 2023 winter season without Ruapehu will be odd, even from afar.
Admittedly, the moments of seeing the ‘bluebird’ days of clear skies after a fresh dusting of powder on webcams from the UK had become few and far between in recent years.
More often I’d think: “I know it’s called the Rock Garden slope for a reason, but was it always so brown in July?”
As any long-time devotee to Ruapehu will know, it’s far from the perfect winter ski spot: lift queues, full car-parks, half of Auckland there on a Saturday or school holiday, comically high food, drink and day pass prices, bottlenecks and broken wrists. And that’s before we get into ice sheets, westerly gales and highly aggressive rain.
And, despite these traits, like a cantankerous old family member only we can make fun of, we still loved our mountain.
I hope for an against-the-odds funded resurrection of RAL in some capacity (and why not grant it a few million for a tourism non-profit severely knee-capped by closed borders?) because, for the North Island at least, Ruapehu is irreplaceable.
The world-famous ski resorts of Queenstown, teaming with cashed-up Aussie families and skint backpackers, are out of reach for many fledgling, would-be snow enthusiasts.
I first skied on the snowed over golf course of the Château Tongariro, before graduating from Happy Valley, to the Rock Garden and then further up the mountain. We were certainly not staying at the iconic stately hotel, instead crammed into a family caravan at the DOC campground at Whakapapa village wrapped up in second-hand highlighter onesies, inhaling tucker in the shared kitchens, freezing on the campground loo.
Snowsports (often rightly) are seen as elitist and reserved only for the wealthy. Ruapehu (and some top-notch budgeting from my parents and grandparents) made it possible for a working class family from the Coromandel to have this long connection to the Kiwi outdoors. At least it did.
Do you have fond memories of Ruapehu? Share them in the comments.
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