While I catch my breath and let my body rest, the head of the club suggests I hang up my wet outer clothing in the Dryer Room. The Dryer Room basically is a sauna for wet clothing. The room is warm, damp, and stinks. I should have brought air freshener. But that doesn’t matter; I’m cold, wet, and need thawing. While my winter coat, snow pants, gloves, and hat rest on hung ropes, I lean against a wall and wait. Several others have the same idea and do the same“Well, this is the place to be,” someone comments.
“Yeah, warm & smelly,” agrees another.
“Sorry, that was me,” a guy admits. Everyone laughs.
After several minutes, the damp stench gets to me and I leave. Since I won’t be able to ski until all my stuff dries off, I might as well take a private tour of the club building. Each sleeping room can hold 6 people by fitting them onto triple bunk beds! Would be quite a wake up for the person rolling off the top. The washrooms have toilets and showers, making me ponder how hard it must have been to lay the pipes up the mountain.
The kitchen is pretty big, with gas operated stoves & oven, along with the other essential appliances. And the lounge is a bit cold and suffering a leak in the ceiling. Overall, not a bad structure. A plaque in the kitchen proclaims the building was built in the 1960s. Time to go check on my drying clothes. Still wet! Well, at least I brought a book. Might as well read while I wait.
My outer clothing is finally dry; I can walk over to the main lodge and rent a whole ski set. The staff hooks me up with a slick pair of skis, boots, poles, hooking belt and a lift pass, all for the low, low price of $55NZD. Student discounts rule!
Instead of chair lifts, skiers & snowboarders must rely on the services of tethered rope lifts. There’s only a heavy rope to hold onto and it pulls you up the mountain. To make it easier, you’re given a hooking belt with a metallic clamp that you must quickly attach to the rope and hold onto tightly or else you’ll fall or slide back down. That’s something you don’t want happening when you’re being pulled through the steeper parts of the mountain. To protect your gloves from being worn out by the rope, you wear glove protectors; basically, gloves on gloves. I’m glad I bought a pair on the way or else I would have had to pay a higher price at TB. Despite my previous skiing experience, getting on & off the lifts took some time. It takes quite an amount of strength to hold onto the clamp, making sure it doesn’t open, and remain standing up. The third time turned out to be the charm.
The slopes of
Due to TB’s remoteness, machines don’t plow the slopes; the skiers & snowboarders plow them. Fun & work at the same time I guess. Since this was my first day, I tired myself out just after 3 runs. To my surprise when on break in the main lodge, I somehow acquired a 5 piastres coin from the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.
Customer traffic on the slopes is low because of the resort’s accessibility. Not a lot of people can stand the arduous trail tramp. I asked the staff why not build a gondola for more customers. They said there’s not enough business for such a project. But, I argued, building a gondola would bring in more customers quickly, paying for itself and turning a profit. They just shrugged and said they weren’t interested.
The view is fabulous!
Evening has come and it’s time for dinner. It’s about time after spending the entire afternoon skiing the unplowed slopes and wrestling with the tethered rope lifts. Two lunch meals and one dinner are included in the fees that members had to pay. The TB staff has prepared a delicious looking meal consisting of meat and steamed vegetables. Due to force of habit I ask what kind of meat we’re being served when I should have known it would be lamb. And the lamb was very good; so good that I managed to sneak another piece.
Dinner is now over meaning it’s time for partying and drinking. All I can say is it was an interesting night and the beer was great. There was the option of night skiing but I let my outer clothing dry and have some more beer-oriented fun.
Finding a place to sleep was an adventure on its own. Right from the beginning, the club made the mistake of double booking meaning not enough beds. We were told before the trip but I wasn’t worried. I have had plenty of experiences of sleeping on hard surfaces. Makes me feel like I’m married. Except my case was unique because not only did I not have a bed but I also didn’t have a sleeping bag. I thought about persuading one of the ladies to let me be their warm blanket but decided against it because the other ladies would get jealous and end up fighting for me. So while wearing three layers, I slept on two benches in the kitchen while other double-booked people slept in the pantry, hallway, lounge, Dryer Room (smelly in the morning), and the unheated cabin next door.
"Won't you be cold?" ask several club members.
"Of course not," I reply enthusiastically. "We Canadians sunbathe in this weather!"
"Please don't," they add.
To be continued . . .
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