Ski-slope workers’ narrow escape
Two men had a narrow escape from an avalanche ‘‘big enough to destroy a small town’’, but the cascading slip carried away a large snow plough, damaged a ski-lift tower and shut down Mt Ruapehu’s upper skifields.
Two Ruapehu Alpine Lifts staff were setting up for the day yesterday morning before the Tu¯ roa field opened, at a ski-lift building on one of the upper slopes, says a regular skier, who heard about the incident from staff, but asked not to be named.
The pair, aged in their 20s, were outside watching as the avalanche control team set off preventative detonations on the upper slopes. One of the men had just parked a ‘‘snow cat’’ grooming machine, which looks similar to a big bulldozer, the regular skier said.
‘‘They were all on radio, so they all knew [the blasting] was going on, but they weren’t expecting it to go as big as it went. They got radio calls and ran into the safe zone in the [ski-lift return] building. The avalanche came down and took the cat.’’
The avalanche left a 700-metre debris field and carried the cat about 200m down a ski run called Vertigo, probably writing it off, he said. The building staff took shelter in a ‘‘big reinforced building designed to take a lahar going over it, but the door got mostly buried’’.
‘‘They’re a little bit shaken and quite a lot of them are extremely excited.’’
‘‘They’re a little bit shaken and quite a lot of them are extremely excited they got to see a very rare occurrence.’’
Ruapehu Alpine Lifts chief executive Ross Copland said avalanche control explosives were being set off by a snow safety team on a different slope when an ‘‘adjacent’’ snow face collapsed in a large avalanche that was not expected.
He confirmed a tower from the High Noon ski-lift, and a snowgrooming machine were damaged, and the avalanche had come ‘‘in the proximity’’ of staff setting up for the day, but all staff were safe.
‘‘They’ve done an amazing job. We’ve had a really great snow this year. It does increase the avalanche risk.’’
In a video update last night, Copland said the tower would need to be taken down and disassembled to fully assess damage. If the haul rope was damaged, it could take some time to source a replacement.
The avalanche started above the top High Noon chairlift about 8.30am, and the upper slopes of both the Tu¯ roa and Whakapapa sides of the mountain were closed for the day.
Mountain Safety Council alpine adviser Loik Lassueur said the avalanche was about size four, ‘‘which means it is enough to destroy a train or a small town. It’s about 10,000 tonnes in snow’’.
Ski patrols had headed out to do avalanche safety checks of the whole mountain and check the area the avalanche covered, and engineers are investigating the extent of problems at the High Noon chairlift.
Staff set explosives off remotely at skifields outside skiing hours if there is potential for avalanches, Mountain Safety Council chief executive Mike Daisley said.
The damage to the chairlifts in this avalanche was ‘‘not ideal, but the snow does what it wants after it’s triggered’’.
This was the third large avalanche on the mountain in recent days.