New Zealand Ski Dream Realized

New Zealand skiing is world famous. When the opportunity to go ski there and visit old friends comes, a skier must go.

It was 1992 that my pals John and Diana took their three year-old, Paul, and their unborn, Mark, home to New Zealand for good.

For me, it was the end of one personal era and the beginning of an another.

J&D had been living in New Hampshire and Montreal for many years, and throughout that time we'd been meeting in central Vermont about twice a month to ski. They'd been instrumental in helping me teach my kids to ski. Then, just when I thought I could return the favor, they up and left. Gone home to raise their kids in their native land.

And so, my focus changed from scheduling New England get-togethers and visits to Montreal to trying to plotting a trip to New Zealand.

It took 14 years, but last month I finally made it.

New Zealand skiing holds something like a mythic reputation among North American snowsliders. Especially the South Island. (The country is comprised, for those who might not know, of two islands - North and South. North is primarily volcanic and holds one major commercial ski field, as the locals call ski areas. South is primarily glacier-formed, and holds half a dozen or so.)

Ski film makers flock to the so-called Southern Alps to show off the seemingly endless powder fields accessed by helicopter. But, we weren't ponying up the big bucks to ride in choppers. We-a group of North American Snowsports Journalists Association (NASJA) members-were sampling a typical, one-week group tour to Queenstown. Then I was heading to Auckland for a week with J&D.

After a 14-year quest to make this trip, I was ripe for a letdown, yes?

No.

It couldn't have gone better. I'll report in more detail on the specifics and the ski fields themselves at a later date, but suffice it to say, the rumors were all true: the place is beautiful, the people incredibly friendly, the general attitude towards adventure remarkable (Queenstown is where bungy jumping was invented), and the skiing, while not sensational, was certainly excellent.

All that, and I got to spend a week with my long-lost friends.

Even though I could no longer offer to assist with young children (one's 17 and doing an exchange-student year in Austria; the other's a pretty damned sophisticated 14 year-old), it was as if no time had passed at all. We skied, we talked, we toured and, all-too-soon, I left.

New Zealand lived up to my expectations. Now all I've gotta do is figure out how to get back there. This time for at least a month.