Nine winters and she’s still happy
Forget beaches and 9pm sunsets.
For Lynsey Slack, it’s been winter for five years non-stop.
The professional ski instructor – currently teaching at Whakapapa Skifield – has been flying between the north and south hemispheres for nine consecutive ski seasons.
‘‘I love being in the snow so getting to ski and snowboard literally every single day is absolutely amazing.’’
Compared with Vancouver’s skifields, where Slack spends the Kiwi summer, Mt Ruapehu skifields were a lot more open.
‘‘Definitely, terrain-wise, this is the best place,’’ she said.
‘‘I do miss trees every now and again, but when you get up into the upper mountain, the terrain up there is just next level amazing.’’
Advanced skiers could learn a lot from lessons – they were not just for beginners, Slack said.
‘‘Up past the Knoll Ridge Cafe, there’s a lot of off-piste stuff [offtrail, within ski area boundary], which is amazing to ski on,’’ she said.
‘‘But it’s a totally different way to ski and snowboard, so the technical ability you need to ski out there is best learned from a person who knows it, like myself.’’
The 28-year-old Brit teaches snowboard and ski tricks too.
‘‘I can do [teach] spinny stuff, jumps, rails, boxes – all that fun stuff. More so on snowboards than skis, but other instructors can do all that epic kind of stuff.’’
Slack is only one of many skifield employees who can’t keep away from the snow.
Turoa Skifield instructor Jordan Whiteside used to teach skiing as an extra, part-time job, in Canada.
‘‘I was working full-time Monday to Friday as an engineer, then working as a ski instructor in the weekends,’’ he said.
‘‘I did it for fun, really. It would be a rainy Saturday in Vancouver city, but a beautiful day up on the mountain, so it was a better place to spend the weekend.’’
He rated the views from Mt Ruapehu highly.
‘‘You can see Mt Doom on one side, and then as far as Mt Taranaki on the other,’’ he said.
‘‘It’s just phenomenal.’’ Kiwi uni students are opting for the snow life too.
University of Auckland graduates Sam Lancaster-Robertson and Michelle Allbury are working as lift operators at Turoa Skifield for the winter.
‘‘I’ve been studying for the past four and half years, and wanted a break,’’ Allbury said.
‘‘I thought I’d have a descent mountain lifestyle, for a while.’’
Lancaster-Robertson, a Bachelor of Science graduate, said he was keen to land some tricks at Turoa.
‘‘We’ve heard there’s a really good terrain park there ,’’ Lancaster Robertson said. ‘‘I’d encourage people to come over to the wild side.’’
Like many on the mountain, Allbury said she was looking forward to some good mountain tucker.
‘‘Apparently there’s good breakfast muffins at Turoa’’.