Night skiing at Coronet Peak

By CHRIS BARTON


Friday 7pm on the Meadows Chair and I'm getting sunset in stereo. To my right, the eastern mountains are topped with an indigo band of blue, then a layer of pink that gives up to a turquoise twilight sky.

To the left, the encircling western ridges in silhouette have an orange glow spilling their peaks. This is night skiing at Coronet Peak. The crowds have dispersed, the snow is soft and the air is crisp. It's hard to believe I was in the Auckland bustle just five hours earlier.

Here's how it's done. Catch the Air New Zealand 1.40pm direct flight which gets you to Queenstown at 3.30pm. Bus or taxi to your accommodation - and if you want to pamper yourself, you can't go wrong with the Dairy Guest House, where you'll be given the warmest of welcomes by host Elspeth Zemla.

After a cup of tea, unpack, don your ski outfit and wander down the road (two minutes) to the Snow Centre for lift passes and ski rentals.

Then jump on the 5.30pm Ski Shuttle and by 6.15pm you're up the mountain and pulling on your ski boots. With a new, automated, multi-million dollar snowmaking gear, the snow at Coronet is always consistent.

In the half-hour before it gets fully dark and the lights take over I hone my night vision and find goggles-off is much better - especially when I stray off the lit trail.

With so few people around there's plenty of room to move and the skiing is freaky, exhilarating and beautifully eerie.

Other skiers are going fast - and many of the numerous snowboarders seem to believe they own the mountain and whiz by too close for comfort ("Look out dude!"). Still, no one hits me and after a few great runs I retire to the Coronet Peak cafe for something to eat and apres-ski.

I have a pang of disappointment as I do the ski boot stump across the outside terrace where a live band implores me to "Jump for my love" and a mellow crowd is gathering.

It's not because I am old among the youth culture, but because I know this is just the sort of scene my 13-year-old daughter would have loved.

This was supposed to be a father-daughter skiing weekend, but Monika had caught some nasty virus at the last minute and couldn't come.

An indifferent youth serves me a marinated steak sandwich on ciabatta. I particularly like the way he scoops fries with rubber-gloved hand and plonks them on my plate. The eating isn't great.

The steak begins well enough but becomes gristle-like towards the centre and the bread tends to crumble in a dry, stale sort of way.

The atmosphere is convivial and a glass or two of red wine washes away sins. But on the shuttle back to Queenstown, I hear an Australian accent complain of cold lamb shanks. To be fair, a day later I find the soup and garden salad for lunch most agreeable.

On the shuttle I begin to suspect an unwelcome visitor has hitched a ride - in my throat. By the time I get to my stop I'm feeling quite unwell. Gavin, the amiable bus driver, tries to suggest a different place to get off. "Just take me to the Station," I snap. "Sure I can do that," says Gavin, somewhat taken aback.

I get off, clatter about trying to pick up my skis and manage to mutter a "thank you". I want to tell the driver that it was the virus talking before, but I'm too ill.

At the Dairy Guest House I dump my skis and boots in the drying room and crawl into bed. By now the virus is manufacturing razorblades in my throat and I'm alternating between the sweats and the shivers. I have troubled dreams.

The next morning I meet an Australian couple downstairs in the sun-drenched breakfast room which dates back to the 1920s, when it was a general store. Now, with windows all around and gorgeous views of the snow-capped mountains encircling Lake Wakatipu, it's the perfect place to start the day.

I greet the Australian couple with a coughing fit which they echo - a common form of greeting in Queenstown in the early spring, usually accompanied by discussion on getting over it, the duration of, or how one acquired the affliction.

I have survived a night of turmoil by taking Panadol every four hours, but awake to find my forehead has erupted in angry red welts - some sort of allergic reaction. I am a sorry sight and talk with a croak.

The Australians don't seem to mind and tell me of their past week's adventures, including being snowbound at Dunedin's Larnach Castle. Australians abound in Queenstown. Cheaper and much better than Australia, they tell me. Everyone is raving about the snow.

A hearty cooked breakfast improves my mood. I suck on throat lozenges and wearily climb aboard the bus for the Remarkables. I've done this ride many times but the zigzag climb to the snowfield never fails to seem at once breathtaking, hair-raising and life-threatening.

The snow is velvet, but the skiing is not so good - hampered by "flat light" which mucks your depth perception. Contours, bumps and drops disappear and I can't tell whether my skis are attached to my knees or my feet.

I retire to the Remarkables cafe where the fare is not dissimilar to that of Coronet Peak - except the fries come in a tub rather than a glove. My chicken sandwich is quite acceptable, except for some Australians who join my table and then promptly tip over their drinks.

One makes a cursory effort to mop up the mess with paper serviettes, but the group quickly decamps to another table, leaving my tray floating in coloured liquid. As they settle in to their new table I notice they tip their drinks over again. Perhaps it's the altitude.

By 2pm the cloud has cleared a bit and I meet Brad, my instructor. We jump on the Alta Chair and I get another pang of disappointment as I watch some kids get air off a bump on the tubing park. Monika would have loved this - hooning down a shaped slope on an inner tube.

The sun comes out briefly as we take the Sugar Bowl chair up to the Superpipe - an extraordinary "U" shaped construction with sheer walls. Mad snowboarders and skiers throw themselves into the pipe seeking "air" as they fly up the opposite side. Brad tells me it's an amazing sensation - being perpendicular on a snow wall, feeling as though you should be falling, but actually about to fly.

The next day back at the Dairy Guest House in front of a roaring fire and sipping on a fine wine I overhear an Australian talking about his perpendicular performance. He forgot to turn at the top and came down flat on his back. "Did you get air?" asks his teenage son. "Yes, all my air was knocked out of me," replies the dad.

I forgo the air experience, but I manage to drop my glove into the Superpipe which Brad kindly retrieves for me. We move on to inspect the terrain park - rails, jumps, ironing boards and table tops - heaven for snowboarders, insanity for the rest of us.

On the way down we check out the mini-terrain park where novices of the "getting air" art can learn on smaller and lower rails and jumps. We wince as one would-be acrobat takes a spectacular jump and falls on his shoulder, making a marked dent in the packed snow. Incredibly, he gets up and carries on.

We carry on, too, up the Shadow Basin chair which features some fantastic black runs for experienced skiers. Brad points out the escalator and Alta Chutes down to Lake Alta, which was the Dimrill Dale set in The Lord of the Rings.

I opt for the easier blue run then take the Alta Chair again. We brace ourselves with our poles at the top as an icy blast buffets with awesome force. "Just another 40km/h and you'd know how Sir Edmund felt on Mt Everest," says Brad. The run down the creek bed is sheltered but the wind is blowing sheets of snow over the ridge, signalling time to call it a day.

Next morning I'm up at 7am and after a quick coffee and toast am on the road by 7.30am heading for Coronet and First Tracks - skiing between 8 and 9am before the mountain opens.

When I jump on the Coronet Express Chair with my First Tracks pass, the entire mountain is bathed in sparkling morning sun but cloud moves in as I begin my ascent. Fortunately, I burst through it and back into the sun at the top.

There really is no one else around - just me and the mountain - as I indeed make first tracks on the freshly groomed M1. I meander to take in the quiet and my insignificance in the face of this mountain. Halfway down I become even more insignificant as I hit the cloud and white-out so I don't really know where I am.

I catch sight of two ghostly figures gliding by to my left. Convinced this is my only way down I chase them. They ski very fast, but adrenaline subdues my normal reticent skiing style as I execute daring parallel turns sending up spectacular spumes of powder.

I make it down in one piece, my heart pounding, and retire to the cafe where I find most of the other first trackers have also gathered hoping for the cloud to lift. It's a largely local crowd aiming for a few hours' skiing before work.

The cloud lifts a bit later and the rest of the day's skiing is perfect, except it does get a little crowded on the M1 and a burly Australian comes out of nowhere and bowls me over.

But I'm not complaining. When you've survived a virus, flat light, biting wind, white out, and still had a fantastic time, an out-of-control Australian is nothing.

* Chris Barton visited Queenstown as guest of nzski.com.