another week - September 4, 2010

My mom and dad have been asking me, "what's the deal, why haven't we heard from you?" Mostly it's because I haven't gotten into any crazy adventures lately and my camera broke. I got a new camera and took some pictures on a bike ride yesterday. It was a fine day, which is somewhat rare. It's not really very cold here but it's often damp, and often windy. I've never lived in a place where wind has such an effect on your daily activities. Today it was howling on the mountain and in town. Riding your bike is impossible in such a wind, and even walking around outside isn't exactly desirable.

Six more weeks to go, and I'm not going to lie -- I'm a little homesick. I miss not having to prove myself at work all of the time. I also miss my cat, my speedy car, and the Colorado sunshine. Hopefully there will be a little bit of fall left when I return.

I bought a cord of wood and have been burning it steadily to heat the front room. I've been jogging around the rugby grounds and also riding my bike. I'm going to enter this skiing/cycling/running race in a month and I want to do it without too much pain. It's a little hard to get into a routine with my schedule. I work at 3pm some days, then 12 midnight some days. Tonight I'm supposed to be there at 3am on account of the wind. It's a drag. There's supposed to be more wind and snow on the way so I am bringing a book and a change of clothes. We may be stuck up there for awhile. It's a pretty serious journey back and forth to the mountain in bad weather, and sometimes we get marooned.

Yesterday I rode my bike to the nearby gorge, which is a scenic spot not too far away. I stopped and bought a Coke and a packet of chips at a tavern there. The proprietor was obviously North American from his accent. I asked where he was from and he said he was an Australian citizen. Then he admitted that he grew up in California. He then described, somewhat proudly, that he hadn't been back to the USA more than 10 days in 30 years. It was like he had something against the place and he was proving that he was sticking to his convictions by renouncing his citizenship. Whatever floats your boat, I thought.

It's funny being an American abroad. I think people are shocked when they meet a real American and he doesn't talk like a Texan or look like someone on MTV. In my travels in the world I have encountered some challenges from people who want to know why America does this or that, or why we invade this country or that. I think sometimes people are dismayed by the onslaught of American culture that is impossible to avoid, from TV to music to clothing to language.

But on the other hand, I still sense wonder about America, that it's such a diverse, freewheeling place where there is such a variety of peoples and beliefs, and someone can be anyone they want to be. Maybe I'm naively patriotic but I think America, or at least the idea of America, is something that a lot of people are really awed by, warts and all. Funny, though, that everybody is looking in but we don't really look out very much.

Some pics from my bike ride:

Taking it easy

Mt Hutt

Rakaia River gorge. It's a bit of a climb to get out of here on a bike.

a little crazy lately - August 10, 2010

The ski mountain has been a war zone lately. We had a huge dump of snow and they couldn't get the road open for a couple days. Part of the crew had to stay up on the hill over the whole weekend with nowhere to sleep and no fresh clothes, etc. I was in town but kept getting calls every two hours through the night with road updates, waiting to go up. Finally they decided to send the whole staff up in helicopter trips, which was pretty rad. We got the place open for a few hours in the afternoon. Then I was back in my cat, 19 hour work day.

The following morning was eventful. Two cars off the road, one upside down full of ski instructors. Then about 11am, an avalanche swept down through one of the bowls. So they stopped everything, took everyone out into the parking lot, and counted heads. Meanwhile they had all the patrollers, two dogs (who also wear avalanche beacons), and two helicopters searching around. It became apparent that it was too dangerous for patrol to operate in there so they retreated and just rode in the helicopter looking for signs. Nobody came forward to say that anyone in their party was missing, so they just hoped for the best and opened the ski area back up.

I skied after they re-opened and stopped at an overlook of the slide. It was pretty massive.

intentional release by explosives after the storm

unintentional slide triggered by skiers

car off the road

one of our search dogs, all tuckered out after digging in the snow

yours truly

video of helicopter commute:

windy day - August 2, 2010

This weekend, the ski resort was closed due to wind. It was a Nor'wester, hot damp wind blowing down from the Tasman Sea. It had been forecast for awhile so everyone was ready for it. Tables and chairs were lashed down, some of the chairs were taken off the ski lifts, and vehicles were parked as close to the building as possible.

I was really excited to see what all the fuss was all about, so I stayed up at the ski lodge with a couple of other people. After the wind came, we were pretty much barricaded up there. Boulders were tumbling down the hill onto the road, and the wind gusts would possibly blow one's car completely off. The winds gusted at about 120kph in the base area, and 200kph up top.

I was up for a couple of days, reading, listening to the wind shake the building, and watching some TV. It was fabulous.

I made a video, which I will post separately. If you have the time, check it out. It's 2 min long and 5mb in size.

scouring all the snow off the hill

sunrise after the storm

chairlift problem due to wind - something isn't right here

digging a road - July 24, 2010

Things have been fairly mundane around here. I've just been going to work every day, eating bland store-bought sandwiches, and running my propane heater. However, tonight at work I had an interesting experience.

We've had some snow the last few days so there is some digging to be done around the buildings and ski lifts to get everything exposed. I have been working in the base area the last two nights trying to make things look good. It's a lot of work because it's neglected by everyone else until I have to come in and do a huge makeover on it. Anyhow, I had opened up a pretty big project for myself when I got a radio call from ski patrol asking for some assistance.

I was a bit annoyed because I had too much work on my plate to be doing favors for everyone. I reluctantly abandoned what I was working on and went to help.

Ski patrol had been doing some avalanche blasting above the ski area access road. They brought down a pretty huge slide with their explosives, much bigger than they anticipated. It completely erased the road. A guy was there with a front-end loader but wasn't having much luck. So I drove down there with my cat and got involved.

The road is sketchy enough, but I was a full 25 feet above the road in my machine, trying to dig snow out of the side of the mountain. I tried to push it off the side, but tipping over the edge meant certain doom... it's probably a 1500 foot chasm to the forest below. I've dug out roads before, but certainly nothing like this. Luckily it was dark, and therefore less scary because you can't see the scope of things.

Finally the loader operator and I got a narrow lane dug through the snow. Driving down through it in our truck after work, the vertical walls are probably 20 feet high in spots. I took some pictures while he was finishing up, but nothing really came out. I recycled and doctored an old photo to illustrate.

west coast - July 5, 2010

I have a few days off from work so I decided to get out of town and see the sights. Yesterday I drove through the spine of the island over Arthur's Pass. It takes about four hours to get from one side of the island to the other. People drive like maniacs. The stereo in my car is archaic and has a cassette tape permanently jammed in it. It only picks up a couple of stations. Apparently, the only thing broadcast on Sunday afternoons is horse racing. A rugby game came on later, so I listened to that.

I leafed through the Lonely Planet and decided to stop in this one-horse town (maybe that's a bit generous) called Punakaiki. It has a few places to stay and a tavern.

After a night's sleep in a hostel on the beach, I set out for a hike in the surrounding national park. It's really rugged, with a few trails hacked out of an otherwise impenetrable wilderness. I first stopped at the tourist information office for some intel. The woman gave me a worthless map and suggested a trail. She told me to make sure to leave my plans with someone in case something went wrong. I didn't know who to leave plans with. The only person I know is the seemingly stoned hostel proprietor.

I started walking and the trail went into a rainforest/jungle. It's a blue-sky day but it was very dark inside the forest. Droplets of water dripped from the canopy above in a steady rain. It was pretty cold, maybe 50 degrees. There were signs posted that said make sure to stay on the trail, or you might fall into a hole/chasm. Sure enough, as I walked along I saw deep abysses in the forest floor, hidden by dense ferns. I guess the ground is mostly karst/limestone and the water erodes passages underneath. It is pretty otherworldly and I thought perhaps I might see into a dragon.

I walked for miles, not seeing anyone, and finally emerged on a disused road. I walked down the road for a few miles back to town. I startled a deer which ran off. It was about the size of a Great Dane. I also saw a weird bird, I think it's called a weka. It's about the size of a grouse. It was walking around the ground and yanking tufts of grass and rocks out with its beak, maybe looking for worms/grubs. It didn't appear to be able/interested in flying. It seemed rather worthless.

The main attraction here is these "pancake rocks" which have been eroded by the ocean. In summer tour buses stop and everybody gets out for a few minutes and snaps a picture. I haven't seen them yet so I'm going to walk over there shortly. The ocean seems a bit ferocious today. It is very loud and rolls into the beach with some force. There is a pretty strong breeze which blows the mist off the whitecaps.

I believe I can safely scratch this place off the list. Tomorrow I think I'm going to go back up to Arthur's Pass and do some hiking around the mountains there.

1st days off - June 28, 2010

I had a couple of days off, finally. I spent them doing errands that I needed to do. I bought a bicycle. I first started at the junkyard, then the Salvation Army. There weren't any choices at either of those, so I went to a bike shop. The man didn't have any consignment bikes, but he did have a new one for about $200. So I bought it, with the hope that I can sell it again come springtime. I notice that everyone here has a helmet. I understand that it is required by law, and the police won't hesitate to ticket you for riding without one.

I think it is sturdy enough to ride in the Peak-to-Pub race at the end of the season. It starts at the top of the ski mountain and ends in town. So you have to race on skis from the top to bottom, then ride your bike down the scary access road, then run 10K back to town. I hope I am in good enough shape to do it by then.

Tonight I went over to the local community radio station to ask if I could have a shot at DJing. The guy who runs it happily turned over the keys. The station is located in a former public urinal, has no heat, and has one light bulb. It was burnt out so I had to go buy another one before I started. After I got that sorted out, I played some tunes and now am hired to do a weekly show. Being an American cultural ambassador, I played some Elvis. The sound board is from the sixties or seventies and was made in Michigan. It had a sticker on it from a music shop in Perth, Australia. Then it made it to Methven somehow.

Tomorrow night I will go back to work, which I really enjoy. I have learned my way around the mountain decently well, and have impressed my co-workers with my attention to detail. Vail is pretty particular about the grooming, although they generally have better snow to work with. Last night it rained and then froze, and I heard it was pretty miserable.

So far I haven't destroyed anything, which has also made my bosses happy. It's pretty easy to bash into things in a snowcat, especially when there's a blizzard. I am impressed by how sketchy everything is at this mountain. Many of the catwalks are narrow and have sheer drops on one side to certain doom. Even in the ski area parking lot, there is an unmarked drop over a cliff on one side. If you back too far out of your parking space, you will plummet over rocks until you land in a creek. A guy drove one wheel off the road a few days ago and had to be towed out backwards with a tractor. I'm sure he had to change his underwear when he got home. We of course heard about the whole affair over the 2-way radios, to everyone's amusement. We also had two avalanches the other day. One was intentionally triggered by a patrol explosive, and it ran over the beginner part of the ski area. The other was a natural slide, and it ran across the scary road.

I will be happy to have some Mexican food when I get home. It's not that NZ food is bad, it's just pretty bland. They like potatoes and eggs and cheese, just sort of staple stuff prepared with a hint of Englishness. It's all very fresh. The apples are extremely tasty, as are mandarin oranges. I usually take PB&J to work. I bought a jar of cheap peanut butter and noticed when I got home that it was made in China. Maybe it's snobby, but I am uneasy about Chinese mass-produced peanut butter, so I bought some from Australia the next time I went to the store.

Sorry no pants-on-fire stories this time. I will try to get into some trouble soon.

Ski area avalanche dog

Large neighborhood cat in our tree

My boss, Fish, with his son (who naturally loves snowcats). Everyone here has nicknames, such as Batman and Wobbly. Maybe I can earn one too.

1st night

I am sitting here in front of the offending heater that melted my pants. This morning I was pretty sad when it ran out of propane and I could still see my breath. So I got it refilled and am nice and toasty unless I have to walk away and go to the bathroom or something.

Tonight was my first night of work. I was pretty nervous, and I think my boss was also... everybody stood watching while I backed their bazillion-dollar pride-and-joy out of the shop.

About an hour into the shift, a pea-soup fog settled over the place. Objects like air/water hydrants, signs, lift towers, and sheer cliff edges would suddenly appear in front of me. Then it started to rain. Then it turned into a pretty heavy snow, which then turned into a howling blizzard. We groomed some stuff but it probably didn't matter a whole lot in the end. So we went down and had some coffee and waited for the late shift to show up.

The road is so bad getting here that it is always a possibility that the graveyard shift can't make it up the mountain. So we have to wait and see if they show up before we can leave. If they don't show up, we take a break for a few hours in the well-lived-in (possibly bedbug-infested -- that's "beedbug" in Kiwi) break room/crash pad, then return to work. Luckily they showed up, and we got to go home. Unfortunately, we had to drive down in the snow.

This road is like no other road I have ever seen. Really, no hyperbole, it is absoutely frightening. It's a graded dirt road that has been hacked into this steep mountainside. And it's long, too, maybe six miles of butt-clenching. The maritime environment means it is snow at the top, sleet and slush in the middle, and rain at the bottom. When it's clear it's even scarier because you can see the chasm below. There is, no joke, currently a pile of automotive wreckage about 400 feet below the road in a gully. A guy slid off two weeks ago and they were able to recover the body but not the car. Gawkers have been taking pictures of it.

We chained up the crew-cab pickup and headed down. Snow was blowing over the hood and the wind was shaking the truck. Everybody was laughing and having a great time. Anyhow we made it down and I got back home.

The ski area is the bowl on the top of the mountain on the right.