Rob's skiing Expedition in NZ
ROB WRITES - These pics are extraordinary because of where they are. I asked the chopper pilot to land on this tiny ledge 5,500 feet up a mountain (Mount Aspiring actually which is 11,000 feet high) where amongst this brutal alpine landscape lies a small ski hut. It can’t be reached by road or foot (mountain climbers can get there) and it was built entirely from helicopter airlifts. When you see it from 8,000 feet, it’s a tiny speck among the amazing isolation that is the endless snowy peaks of the south island mountains. There’s nothing else for miles around. Incredibly all this wilderness—there are several glaciers near this hut—is just 15 minutes by slow (140 knots) chopper from the bars and restaurants of down-town Wanaka.
How did it get there (the hut I mean)? Well it seems that one Marty Myer, scion of the Myer department store family in Melbourne, a guy about our age, went skiing for the first time about five years ago and became so enamoured of the sport he quickly graduated to heli-skiing, which brought him to the Harris Mountains and the Mount Aspiring National Park, where we went. Two years, hundreds of thousands of dollars in lawyers fees (to get approvals to build), the purchase of his own Aerospatiale Dauphin and the acquisition of a massive North American style lodge on the shores of Lake Wanaka and he was set up. Then there was the construction cost! He skis there about three weeks a year!
Anyway the pics of me are at 5,500 feet. Less than 15 paces in either direction and the mountain falls away nearly 3,000 feet to the valley floor. By the way, it’s a Robertson R44, not bad for a naturally aspirated piston engine thingee. Give me two turbines any day, but they’re somewhat more expensive to hire. 
Rob at 5 and a half thousand feet
How did it get there (the hut I mean)? Well it seems that one Marty Myer, scion of the Myer department store family in Melbourne, a guy about our age, went skiing for the first time about five years ago and became so enamoured of the sport he quickly graduated to heli-skiing, which brought him to the Harris Mountains and the Mount Aspiring National Park, where we went. Two years, hundreds of thousands of dollars in lawyers fees (to get approvals to build), the purchase of his own Aerospatiale Dauphin and the acquisition of a massive North American style lodge on the shores of Lake Wanaka and he was set up. Then there was the construction cost! He skis there about three weeks a year!
Anyway the pics of me are at 5,500 feet. Less than 15 paces in either direction and the mountain falls away nearly 3,000 feet to the valley floor. By the way, it’s a Robertson R44, not bad for a naturally aspirated piston engine thingee. Give me two turbines any day, but they’re somewhat more expensive to hire. 
Rob at 5 and a half thousand feet
posted by denb@mac.com at 5:10 AM
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