Every family needs rituals. They're events we look back on, compare year to year and reminisce about after time has smoothed the rough edges.
Since 2016, our family has joined about a dozen others to
Dawn Picken with her daughter on the slopes.
Every family needs rituals. They're events we look back on, compare year to year and reminisce about after time has smoothed the rough edges.
Since 2016, our family has joined about a dozen others to spend a weekend near Mt Ruapehu in early August. The date is always the same; the weather and snow conditions are always a crap shoot. We stuff the car with gear - one pair of skis, boots poles, because the kids have outgrown their old ones, plus a big suitcase with parkas, hats, gloves, helmets, goggles… throw in enough food for a week, extra blankets, sleeping bags and pillows, and we look ready to camp in Antarctica.
Our accommodation, the old schoolhouse at Mangatepopo, feels like the South Pole when we arrive. Miss 17 and I are the first inside. The fire awaits a match and every room is chilly, though bunk rooms have electric bar heaters. Bathrooms are unheated and freezing. I flick a slug outside before closing the windows. Normally we take a vow of filth during school camp weekend; it seems impossibly cold to disrobe and shower there. But we got soaked skiing this year, so we broke the rule.
Someone has arranged logs and kindling into a pyramid inside the wood burner. We soon have roaring flames. My girl and I slide a supermarket pizza into an oven and feast alone. It is the calm before the masses descend with boxfuls of food and hordes of teenagers.
Master 15 has stayed behind in Papamoa to celebrate his best friend's 16th birthday. I am grumpy about this. Skiing is one of the few activities that could entice my son to road trip with us.
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.
It comes amid a years-long dispute that has already cost ratepayers nearly $70k.