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93 2011 AN

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93

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THE QUESTWords And Photos By Neil Kerr

Fox Glacier, on New Zealand’s wild West Coast, is one of the closest Glaciers to the sea in the World. Tourists flock to this corner of New Zealand to view it year round.

They walk up to the terminal moraine and scratch around on the dirty toe of this huge river of ancient ice. Little do they know that high above them, on the snowy Neve at the head of the Glacier, rise some of New Zealand’s gnarliest peaks and one of our coolest Alpine huts. It’s from here, Pioneer Hut, at the very end of October we find ourselves searching for big lines to ski.

Late spring sees a lot of high alpine faces coming into ‘condition’. The melt-freeze cycle means, by lunchtime, the hard frozen snow is released from its frozen form and corns up, making for extraordinarily good big-mountain skiing.

With me is fellow cameraman Jason Hancox. We’ll be filming the pilot show of a web based video series: The Quest. It follows The North Face sponsored athletes; Fraser McDougall and Janina Kuzma as they develop the experience and knowledge necessary to climb peaks and ski first descents here in New Zealand. To provide us with tutorage we brought in the expertise of Adventure Consultants, who gave us Geoff Small. An experienced guide and ski mountaineer, he’s also won the NZ Big Mountain Championship eight-times!

As our helicopter ascends the prehistoric Glacier towards the Neve it started to dawn on us how vast the landscape is up here. Geoff was the only one of our group who’d been to the fabled Pioneer Hut, a climber’s mecca that precariously perches atop a rocky outcrop beside the glacier. We dropped off our gear and bagged a bed each for the night. During spring this hut is busy with mountaineers and ski tourers making the most of the great conditions.

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Scoping lines on the lookers left shoulder. Janina Kuzma, Fraser McDougall, and guide Geoff Small.

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Tele soul shredder Rory Cam ripping up Red Mountain. PHOTO:MICKEY ROSS

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At the start of every Kiwi snow season, there’s a gathering of the usual suspects. You spot them

in the cafe, on the chairlift; assembling, going up, going down: an eclectic collective sampling the

best lines on the hill. You know them by their stickered helmets and exotic jackets that speak of hot

turns in high places. You notice they don’t tend to go on warm up runs: they’re ski fit from stints in

the Northern Hemisphere. They don’t wait around much; they’ve got their playlunch stashed in their

pockets so they can carve their favourite lines and huck signature rockdrops like summer never

happened. They are the classic ski bums.

However, today’s workforce is changing, so now the fat cats with the overloaded Subarus, McJobs and matchstick tans aren’t

the only ones with ski bum cred. There’s a ski bum evolution going on and as you rock into the carpark, you might rub shoulders

with a stealth ski bum who has been working online all night, or is snatching a snow fix before the markets open in Japan. You’re

bound to bump into some of the old school crew too, who have skied the world, and now juggle career and family whilst still

maximizing their time on snow. Have a chat in the lift line and they’ll share the reasons for their winter addiction. Their unifying

motive for choosing to pursue the dream (often over the standard nine to five and acquisition of shiny things) is simply that being

a ski bum is good for you.

Every ski bum can reel off an array of enticing reasons as to why the chase of the white stuff increases your sense of wellbeing.

The real ski bums, the lifers, follow winters because it’s physiologically addictive. I spoke with a variety of snow-savvy

dreamhunters, including pro skiers past and present, seasonal workers, powder-hungry freelancers and entrepeneurs who all

share the passion because they’re hooked, mind, body and soul. Talking to Neil Williman, Felicity Perry, Rory Camm, Mickey

Ross, Mat Woods and Todd Windle made me realize that there is no hard-and-fast definition for the contemporary ski bum. Being

a ski bum is a lifelong journey, a cycle of adventures and new beginnings, a search for more everything. It’s a rollercoaster ride

that takes in the contrasts of high glamour and simple Zen living, sometimes all in one day.

Being a ski bum is about integrating a natural high into one’s mode de vivre – lifestyle. That natural high is not just the rush a ski

bum experiences when shredding the gnar, either. Ski bums get sweaty palms and spiky heart rates during every stage of the

skiing journey. They get off on the smell of P-Tex. They’re watching ski movies before the first frost. The thought of seam-sealed

Goretex makes them drool. They make playlists for the drive to and from the hill that capture the pre and post-skiing buzz.

SKI BUMSWords By Annabel Wilson

BEING A SKI BUM IS GOOD FOR YOU

NZSKIER.COM 67

AK DREAMS

I almost hugged the guy next to me. I’d abandoned trying to solve the quadratic equation in question six, and had been distracted by an email from my sponsor, The North Face. I read the words several times before they made sense. I was to be going on a trip to Alaska – a week shooting photos at Points North Heliski operation out of Cordova. Sitting in the grey computer lab, surrounded by the quiet tapping of keys, I could barely contain myself. For me, this was monumental. Alaska had been in my dreams since, as a frothing grommet, I watched Seth Morrison and crew directing their heli pilots to drop them on top of insane lines there.

Already, I had massive expectations for the trip. I could envisage standing at the top of a ski-movie-worthy spine, plastered in Alaska pow, the camera, rolling from the heli, capturing my high-speed descent. I imagined playing the waiting game we all hear about, anticipation building as we held our breath for that bluebird morning and bomber stability, long walks on Alaskan coastline, under the watch of Native American totem poles, and bald eagles circling overhead. But I was getting ahead of myself. Clichés aside, what would my Alaska experience be like? I’d spend the next few months dreaming about it while working my ass off on a building site, my fellow co-workers not understanding why I had a constant far away look in my eyes.

At the end of March, 2011, I was about to discover Alaska for myself. I stepped out of the small plane onto the tarmac at Cordova, and was greeted by a few gnarly fishermen and some locals. Not the glam ski hub I’d pictured, the few ski bags on the flight were ditched onto the floor inside the tiny terminal. Tom Waclo, a guide from PNH, hardened by years of Alaskan winters, picked up my bags and threw them into the truck.

Words By Fraser McDougall Photos By Tony Harrington

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