Kamikaze Kangaroos!

by Tony James Slater

  And it hurts even more than I remember, because frankly, my legs aren’t supposed to bend that way.

  Take two.

  A snowboard on snow is like a bar of soap in the shower, in that if you stand on it there’s a strong likelihood that hospitalization will ensue. Suffice to say, takes three through eighty-seven were spectacularly unsuccessful too.

  Eventually I figured it out; leaning was the way to control this slippery beast, as it went in whatever direction my weight was pointed. And as I got better, I also learnt that it went wherever I was looking, which made staring at Roo’s backside a rather more hazardous activity than usual.

  But having achieved what must have been the very lowest echelon of snowboarding skill, Roo and I decided we’d earned a reward; it was time to trade in our rental gear for something more serious.

  Possibly the worst place in the world to buy ski wear is a ski resort; every item on offer is ridiculously over-priced, even when compared with the ridiculously over-priced version you could buy in any major city. Because of this, both Roo and I invested plenty of time in browsing online auction sites, and our hard work was rewarded when we both bought our dream snowboards for less than a quarter of the price of the cheapest board for sale in Ohakune.

  When they arrived we were ecstatic; Roo’s board was a pale purple, with a dragon curling around it, and mine was black and red and featured a shadowy knight brandishing his sword. Apparently some people choose their snowboard based on totally irrelevant details – like if it’s the right size for them, or designed for their level of expertise, or made by a reputable company – but we knew that what really mattered was the pretty picture on top of it.

  Gill went one better than us in this regard; she bought a bright red snowboard that had obviously been a prize in a Bacardi competition. It was almost as tall as she was, and she stubbornly refused to ride it the right way around – because that would mean that the Bacardi logo on the bottom would be the wrong way up!

  Roo and I just wanted one thing that looked good, as our ski-wear was… well, most of it was hiking-wear that we’d last worn on the Bibbulmun Track.

  Our ski-pants were the exception; Roo’s tight white pants oozed sex-appeal. She could only get one leg into them at once, but again, it’s not about the clothes that fit, and are practical – it’s about the look of it. Everyone knows that.

  My ski pants had cost me $8 in a Melbourne op shop. They were a solid, battleship-grey, with no branding or logo of any kind. They were also rather tight in certain places, which I suspect was the fashion for ski-wear circa 1982. Perhaps the strangest thing about them though, given they were sold as ski-pants, was that they weren’t actually waterproof. It must be a recent advance in materiel technology that allows those designer GORE-TEX garments to stay as fresh as a daisy, despite the realities of the winter sports environment. Thus, the major limitation of being a snowboarder versus being a skier became more obvious; when we get to the top of a lift, before we go anywhere, we snowboarders have to sit down to fasten our free leg back onto the board. Skiers generally take this opportunity to flip us the bird, as they glide past on both skis, and shoot off down the slope without pause.

  But we don’t care, because we know we’re much cooler than they will ever be.

  Or, we would be, except that my trousers absorbed a goodly amount of water whilst I sat fiddling with my bindings. They kept my arse nice and warm, but it was that very warmth, specifically its snow-melting properties, that was the culprit. And I had no idea, until I’d been riding down the mountain at every opportunity for several weeks. And then one day a fellow liftie swished up to me and said, “So, you’ve given the top run a go, have you?”

  “I have,” I said, battling to keep the pride from my voice. “I’ve been doing it for ages now.”

  “Oh, right,” he said. “So, how come you’re still pissing your pants?”

  And he swerved away down the slope.

  Only then did I realise that every single run I’d made had been done with a huge, very obvious, circular wet patch, reaching from the seat of my pants to midway down the back of both thighs.

  With my improved snowboarding ability came improved working conditions; I was finally sent back up the mountain, to brave the weather at the top of the various lifts. These were positions of high responsibility, as being alone up there meant I had to anticipate and solve all the problems, from people falling off the lift and being run over to angry parents refusing to believe I wasn’t allowed to let their terrified child ride the lift back down again. I had to shape and maintain my own ramp, stop and restart the lift in case of emergencies, and I tried to do all of it whilst maintaining a cheerful and polite demeanour.

  It wasn’t always possible.

  When the rain, snow and sleet closed in, high up on the exposed return stations was the worst place to be on the mountain. Ramps still had to be groomed, snow drifts continually removed, and every customer watched like a hawk for fear they’d baulk at the crummy conditions and try to stay on the chair as it ran around the great cogwheel and back down to base.

  Only in the very worst conditions were we allowed to cower in our tiny control booths.

  That’s what I was doing at the top of the Movenpick on a particularly foul afternoon, when the phone rang. This was unusual, in the middle of a shift, but not unheard of. With shit-awful weather flaying the outside of my booth and hardly a skier in sight, I had the sudden hope that this call could mean an early closure.

  “Hello, Movenpick return.”

  “Is that Mr Tony Slater?”

  “It is.”

  “Hello, Mr Slater. Your name has been put forward to us for possible sponsorship. We’re looking to sponsor a number of up-and-coming young snowboarders for the rest of this season.”

  “Oh? Right! Well, I’m, ah, not very good, I’m afraid.”

  “Nonsense! We sponsor mostly new faces, and we’ve heard good things about you from one of our members.”

  “Oh. Who is that, if you don’t mind me asking?”

  “It’s Mr Jenkins who recommended you.”

  “I see.” I had absolutely no idea who this was, but I only knew most of the Turoa staff by their nick-names. “Well that’s very nice of him, but really I am just a beginner.”

  “That’s quite alright. Beginners are the future.”

  “Well, true enough.”

  “So, are you interested?”

  “I don’t know. What does it involve?”

  “We’ll be sponsoring you to ride for us in upcoming events. We’ll pay your entry fee, and you’ll ride in our gear.”

  “Okay! That sounds great!”

  “And our gear is all branded: Snowboarders For Christ.”

  “I… what? Oh.”

  “It’s very important that we spread the message of Jesus Christ to the new generation, and snowboarding is the way we’ve chosen to do it.”

  “Ah. I see.”

  “Do you accept Jesus Christ as your saviour, Mr Slater?”

  “Um, well, I guess so. I don’t have to do anything for that, do I?”

  “Just remember to give thanks to God and Jesus if you win anything.”

  “Right…”

  “How do you feel about wearing a loincloth and a crown of thorns?”

  It was at this point I detected a hint of familiarity in the voice on the other end.

  “Keith? Is that you?”

  This was met with hysterical laughter.

  “Keith, you bastard!”

  The laughter carried on until I hung up on him.

  Evidently it was a slow day at the bottom of the lift, too.

  The Great Storm

  There has been much debate about The Great Storm – specifically, about which storm this title pertains to. For me, there will only ever be one Great Storm – not to be confused with the rather disappointing Great Perth Storm in 2011, which I also lived through (and which, despite a series of panic-inducing warnings from the government, caused noth
ing more damaging than widespread rearrangement of plastic patio furniture).

  The thing is, when you work a ski season, the weather forecast goes from being that completely irrelevant bit at the end of the news that only your mum wants to watch, to being a vital piece of information. It’s not uncommon to find groups of people huddled together like kids in a playground, debating the three-day outlook as though it was the finals of the EUFA Cup. Put simply; weather matters.

  Because we had to get up so early, it was rare for anyone other than the company to have up to date information. As we stamped and shivered, waiting for the staff bus in the tin-roofed shack that served as a depot, we were treated to an endless stream of people walking up to read the forecast pinned to the noticeboard, and either punching the air jubilantly, or muttering curse words under their breath.

  You see, there were always three distinct categories of people waiting for that bus, and they all wanted different things. If the weather was perfect, then anyone working inside would be mightily pissed off – because not only would they be forced to watch everyone else having a great time outside, they would also be rushed off their feet by the influx of customers. Those working outside got to appreciate it more, because they were in it – and might even get chance to sneak off for a couple of hot-laps and really appreciate it. Of course, they would also feel the effects of a mountain full of punters, but it meant that they (which means me!) could mock the indoors-types for their cosy, and ultimately less rewarding, existence. The third group was generally the happiest, because they were the people on their day off, who were catching the bus up the mountain purely for recreational purposes.

  No-one liked them.

  Now, if the weather was bad – or even, really, really bad – it was a complete reversal of fortunes. The lucky buggers working inside would be safe and warm, and bored enough to risk nipping out for a ride in the long gaps between customers. I, on the other hand, would be stuck outside, piss wet through and freezing my ass off, and inwardly pleading with the five die-hard teenagers circling my lift to give it up and go home before I was forced to hurt them.

  The poor bastards who had a day off got the shittiest end of the stick, and would generally be stuck up the mountain until they could bum a lift back down again.

  They’d suffered, got nothing to show for it, and worst of all, they’d missed the chance to have a nice lie-in.

  But no-one had any sympathy for them.

  Weather forecasting, however, is not an exact science. Even with all the technology at our disposal these days, mother nature is a tricky old bird, and has a nasty habit of switching her plays at the last minute. So when I headed up the mountain on a blustery grey day, with more severe weather expected in the evening, I was cautiously optimistic. It wasn’t actually raining, but the threat of it would keep the lift queues light. I was pretty well wind-proofed in my outfit, up to five layers deep in places, so I hoped I could stay dry, and take advantage of a slow day to get some practice in.

  It was not to be.

  By mid-morning, conditions were going downhill rapidly. Rumour had it that the storm was moving up quicker than expected, and might even hit before close of business. From where I stood, halfway up the mountain on a slope called the Winter Garden, it was surprising that we hadn’t closed already. Wind was raging, buffeting chairs and customers alike, and a slushy drizzle was slowly working its way through my layers.

  When a liftie called Con rode up on his knackered board to cover my break, I asked if he thought we should bother; it must have been truly miserable up top by then. But Con was an old hand; he knew the score. “Nah way they’ll close her now! Gotta wait till after lunch, then they don’t have to give out any refunds!”

  Of course! The crafty buggers. If the mountain closed early, half the ticket price would be refunded to anyone that asked; by staying open a little later, even though the conditions were horrible, they were still offering the chance to ski, even if no-one in their right minds would want to. Thus, no refunds had to be issued. It seemed a bit harsh at the time, and was a reminder that although we were there to have fun and muck about, for the bosses of the company this was all about profit.

  And decisions made purely for profit, in my experience, are rarely good ones.

  It took seconds to ride down to base for my break, but it was a real battle to get back up afterwards. I managed, soaked and frozen stiff, and toughed out another pointless hour before I got the call to close down the Winter Garden. I hadn’t had a customer in over half that time, so the call was long overdue, but no matter. Everything above me was already shut. All I wanted to do was get all my queue gates packed away, and get the hell off that mountain.

  By the time I was ready to go, another call had come in; the whole ski field was closed, and customers were being directed by the ski patrollers to get down as quickly as they could. Which is exactly what I did.

  I didn’t know this at the time, but conditions at base were already quite bad. Roo, working with her fellow roadies, had been tasked with escorting customers to their cars; it wasn’t safe to send them out alone, as the wind was threatening to blow people clear across the car park and over the edge of the cliff. Roo struggled a bit, being as how she weighed less than most of our customers, but she bravely battled on, hauling car doors open with all her strength and using her body to stop them filling up with snow. She half-carried a woman with a broken leg, freshly wrapped by the medics, and even loaned the woman her ski gloves.

  One of the last people on the mountain, I skidded down to base in a full blizzard. I could see absolutely nothing, but I’d learnt the terrain well enough to get most of the way down on feel.

  Base, when I got there, was in barely organised chaos. Roo had just been sent out on another trip; two ski patrollers were with her, hauling four members (and three generations) of the same family between them. It was now considered too dangerous even for staff members to go out alone. Roo was inching her way across the car park, arms linked with a ten-year-old boy, when the full force of the storm hit.

  I was last to board the staff bus, which thankfully had waited for me; I felt terrible about leaving Roo in the middle of all this, but so far it was still just a particularly shitty burst of bad weather. She’d be on the next bus, along with all the managers and the rest of the road crew, and I’d make our tiny room nice and warm for her when she got home.

  Or so I thought.

  The bus crawled out of the car park and started down the road, but it was a total white-out. The huge windscreen filled with snow much faster than the wipers could clear it, so Keith stepped into the breach; he jumped off the bus and walked in front of it, one gloved hand on the windscreen, directing the driver one frozen footstep at a time.

  We still crashed.

  There was a ravine on one side of us, a sheer cliff face that fell hundreds of feet down the mountainside. I guess I should be glad we didn’t crash in that direction! Instead we crunched into the uphill side of the mountain, and stuck there.

  As gusts of wind revealed and concealed the road ahead, we could suddenly see that there was no further to go; only a few metres ahead of us, a 4x4 had crashed into the back of an ambulance (which presumably had Roo’s broken leg patient inside it). The ambulance seemed to have crashed into whatever was in front of it, and this slow-motion pile-up had blocked the narrow road completely. Drifts of snow were blowing in, filling the gaps between the vehicles. Our driver got on the radio and reported our situation – and that was that.

  We waited.

  Rescue

  Two hours passed.

  The bus had no heating, so we were glad of our work-wear. Well, those of us that had work-wear were glad of it. I’d long since surrendered my jacket to a girl who worked in the restaurant, and had been sitting there in a shirt and trousers, but I still had two layers of fleece to protect me. Even so, sitting there, cooling our heels so to speak, we began to get very cold indeed.

  Then there was a knock on the door (which shoc
ked the hell out of me, because I’d been half asleep for the last hour).

  Two ski patrollers hauled themselves inside, having crawled all the way here from base. The reason? Why, to bring us Mars Bars, of course! They flung handfuls of chocolate bars down the length of the bus, and told us not to worry – that help was on the way. Honest!

  And then they were gone, back into the howling gale, to take chocolate to everyone else in the pile-up. It might sound silly, but these were emergency rations. Being trapped for hours in a freezing snow-drift was more than just uncomfortable, especially for people on their own in a car. Staying warm when you can’t move anywhere is difficult at the best of times. The ski patrollers, fully equipped with their rescue gear, took everyone they could find in the cars in front of us to safety, by the simple expedient of tying them all together.

  We considered fighting our way back through the storm, but not everyone was equipped for it. Some of the indoors staff had thick waterproof jackets on, but no suitable footwear. It was all-or-nothing – either we all stay, or we all go. So we stayed.

  Another two hours passed.

  I was half asleep when the radio crackled with the news that the snow plough had opened the way behind us. The driver gunned the engine, put the bus in reverse, and, with the help of several spotters outside, negotiated the route backwards all the way back to base.

  Gratefully we flooded off the bus and through the double doors to our staff room, noting as we did so that the foyer was waist-deep in snow.

  That was where I found Roo – battered and traumatised, but otherwise intact.

  When the wind peaked at just over 200kmph, it had been too much for her. The boy she was linked to had been torn from his father’s grip, and the pair of them – Roo plus boy – had been bowled over. Relentless gusts sent them sliding downhill, faster and faster over the rain-slicked ice. Roo knew where that slide ended; the cliff edge, and a brutal plunge down the side of the mountain – but luckily there had been a car in the way. She’d slammed into it head-first, and managed to stick there, still clutching the young lad. The ski patrollers had fought their way down to her one step at a time, reaching them and hauling them a few metres back to where the family’s car sat half buried in snow.