The weather forecast calls for winds and mountain rain. Even though we're closer to Whakapapa, we drive to Turoa, which has opened more runs. I give Miss 17 my credit card to buy ski passes online while I drive so we can skip long queues on the mountain. "It was $500," she tells me after completing the order. I'm aghast. "But you said skiing was expensive," says Miss 17. Yes, but not that expensive. She had mistakenly pressed the same button twice.
We call customer service, where a staff member tells us passes are non-refundable. The car chugs uphill on the fumes of my rage. "Two-hundred fifty dollars is like two, six-hour work shifts for me. It's okay, Mum," says my daughter, offering to fix her mistake. I feel even worse.
After 30 minutes in the guest service queue, an employee refunds our money without hassle. I get a text from Master 15 saying he scored two of his soccer team's three goals this morning and they won. My eyes well with happy tears.
I'm already tired and achy while waiting for the first chairlift. The drive and slog uphill from the car park with kilos of gear flanks the painful exercise of clamping ski boots tightly to my feet and calves.
Once on the lift, we can see - very little. I discern a man skiing below us, leaving a trail of blue dye on the snow the colour of toilet cleaner. "Go, Blue Man!" I say, loud enough for only my seatmates to hear.
A snowboarder falls getting off the lift. In a bid to avoid him, I tumble, too. I readjust my boots of death upwind from the outdoor toilet which smells as you might imagine.
The snow is wet and heavy. My goggles need windscreen wipers, but mittens will have to do. The slopes are crowded, and a young boy in a bright green jacket snowboards out of control, nearly wiping me out. He falls, gets up, then heads for Miss 17. She escapes his path by millimetres.
We fortify ourselves with hot chips and hot chocolate at the cafe before re-emerging into the fog. The lunch of champions has made it possible to endure aching quads and drippy nose for several more runs.
Later this week, my daughter will be besieged by online systems failures as she tries to apply for universities and polytechnics. One site will refuse to function as designed, failing to upload documents. I suggest trying again in the morning, yet she persists, tears in her eyes. It is maddening for both of us.
Later this week, the upper mountain will receive another 51 centimetres of new snow, overlaying the dense, sodden blanket we traversed just days earlier.
But those days are not today. Today, I follow a happy teenager who wants to ski in freezing rain even though we can't see much. She is not frustrated, she is fierce. And fun.
Conditions at the mountain were rubbish, but the memory of a day spent with my daughter during her waning moments as a child warms my heart.
