Pioneer amid mountain peaks
LES Brough will forever be associated with the Coronet Peak ski area, but his lifetime of adventure included climbing more than 60 mountains in the Southern Alps.
Mr Brough, who died in Queenstown on March 9, aged 90, skied at the Queenstown skifield from its opening in 1947. He hung up his skis for good only five years ago.
At various times he worked on the mountain as an instructor and patroller, and helped run the equipment hire shop. He and identical twin brother, Doug, helped install its first chairlift.
There is even a run, Brough’s Lane, named after him.
‘‘He loved skiing. He was mad about it,’’ wife Judy said. Mr Brough told the Otago
Daily Times in 2010 that in the 1940s, he and his friends would come to Queenstown almost every weekend during the winter to ski.
‘‘It took us five hours to drive from Dunedin, and then another five hours to dig our way through the snow up to the huts on the slopes of Coronet Peak, where we would spend the weekend skiing.’’
He won the national Langlauf (crosscountry skiiing) championships in 1959 and later became a regular competitor in masters ski racing.
In the early 1960s, he and Doug were employed to help build the skifield’s first chairlift.
‘‘We dug all the holes for the pylons by hand, had to drag all the gravel up there, and had just one small concrete mixer available. We simply learnt as we went along,’’ he told the ODT.
He was a lifetime member of the Wakatipu Ski Club, housed in the lodge just below the Coronet Peak base building.
In 1993, he cofounded the
One Ski in the Grave Club for over55s. He recruited many of its members by wandering around the skifield’s base building at lunchtimes, looking for greyhaired visitors willing to pay $10 for the club’s distinctive badge.
Now sported by hundreds of members throughout the world, the badge depicts a gravestone with a ski and pole on either side and a ski hat perched on top.
In 2008 he became a member of a team of skifield ‘‘ambassadors’’ who volunteered to show people around the skifield.
Leslie William Brough was born on November 1, 1927, in Middlemarch. He was one of seven children of World War 1 veteran Leslie and Ruth (nee Atkinson) Brough.
He was raised on a sheep farm in Middlemarch, attending Middlemarch Primary School. When the family moved to Dunedin, he continued his education at King Edward Technical College.
His family believe he and Doug moved to Queenstown in the late 1950s or early 1960s after both completed building apprenticeships.
Mrs Brough (nee Pidcock) said she met her future husband in 1964 on a blind date at the Cardrona Coffee Shop, in Queenstown Mall, while she was working at Lakes District Hospital as a registered nurse.
The couple enjoyed socialising, and he was great company — confident and outgoing, she said.
He was known for his friendliness, reliability and physical strength.
‘‘He was just a really nice guy, polite, easy to get on with — he could talk to all kinds of people.’’
They married in her home town of Grafton, New South Wales, in 1967. Sons Julian and Philip were born in Queenstown in 1970 and 1971 respectively.
The couple were married for 51 years.
Julian Brough said building was an ideal trade for his father and uncle, as they could take the winters off to ski.
They built many homes in the resort, and did a lot of work for Sir Harry Wigley, including building a plush home for the tourism industry pioneer in McBride St — it still stands — and an aircraft hangar at Mt Cook, he said.
Mrs Brough said her husband and Doug — who died in 1984 — were ‘‘inseparable’’. They not only worked together but shared a zeal for the mountains.
She believed his passion for the outdoors stemmed from a year he spent in Dunedin Hospital as a young boy. He suffered a rare but serious bone infection in his ankle that nearly resulted in the leg being amputated.
Although he eventually made a full recovery, he was subsequently banned from playing rugby and other traditional boys’ games.
‘‘So he thought ‘well, I can walk’.’’
He could also ride: at the age of 13 or 14, the twins rode their bikes from Kingston to Milford Sound and back during the summer holidays.
At high school, they and a group of friends began spending their summer holidays on long tramping and climbing trips. Over the next several years, they ventured into some of the remotest corners of the Southern Alps, including Fiordland and the Olivine Range.
‘‘They would go where people had never been — they were sort of explorers.
‘‘They would go for weeks and weeks, and people wouldn’t know if they were dead or alive until they came out.’’
Mr Brough made several first ascents of mountains in the Mt Aspiring region. Among them were Maitiiti, in 1958, with Doug, Lindsay Bruce and Alex Gourlay. The following year he made the second ascent, by a new route, of Mt Maori.
As a member of the New Zealand Alpine Club in Dunedin and Queenstown, he often put his carpentry skills to use on hutbuilding projects.
Queenstown accountant and longtime friend Bruce Morris said when he first met Mr Brough at Coronet Peak in the mid1960s, one of his first impressions was of a good sense of humour.
The pair quickly became friends and often skied and tramped together.
‘‘He was a very happy individual — he always had a smile and a laugh.
After both men got married and had families, they would take their children on tramping trips together.
‘‘He had a huge amount of climbing experience. He could name all the peaks that were around you.’’
Julian Brough said although his father loved taking him and his brother skiing, camping and tramping, he never pushed them into the outdoors.
‘‘He supported us with everything we wanted to do.’’
Mr Brough’s voluntary search and rescue work for over 50 years was recognised in 1997 with a Police Commissioner’s Citation and Certificate.
Two years later he was awarded the Queen’s Service Medal for services to alpine climbing, skiing and search and rescue in the Wakatipu.
He is survived by wife Judy and sons Julian, of Queenstown, and Philip, of Auckland.
A memorial Mass will be held next Saturday, May 5, at 1pm at St Joseph’s Church in Queenstown.