It's a great life but hard work

By COLIN MOORE

IT'S A hard life skiing in Aspen, Colorado, partying in Paris and clowning around at Cardrona.

But dare to ask Bridget Rayward, who gets to do all of the above, when she is going to get a real job and you would deserve a kick in the shins.

Rayward is a ski and snowboard instructor winter in, winter out, and it is not only a serious career choice - it's dammed hard work.

She also happens to be one of the best in the business, head of the Cardrona ski school, president of the New Zealand Ski Instructors Alliance and senior examiner, with an enviable reputation among her North American peers.

Rayward has been on skis since she could stand on her hometown Lake Tekapo snow. She graduated from Otago University as a bachelor of physical education before turning to ski teaching as a profession.

"It's a job I really love," she says, "but it can get frantic."

Cardrona runs an instructors' training course in conjunction with the Otago Polytechnic. The course takes ski (and latterly snowboard) students through a full winter term to become qualified instructors. More than half the Cardrona instructors were taught by Rayward.

She was New Zealand's freeskiing champion for five years running and, with fellow instructor Fiona Boyer, won the last South Pacific Powder 8 event. The two were seventh in the world championships, an open event, in Canada.

And, of course, life isn't all about snow. Rayward completed the gruelling one-day Coast to Coast, finishing as the eighth woman home.

Skiing with Rayward is special because she makes it as much fun as her own lively personality.

* From June 20 Rayward will contribute a tips column in our fortnightly Snowlines feature.