Mt Olympus fun ski-ing

Press, 1 June 1989, Page 33

Mt Olympus fun ski-ing

Merely, from the names given to its various ski weeks alone you can easily deduce that Mount Olympus is a fun place to ski. Rockhoppers, Diplomats, Mudflappers, Dogtuckers and Sunlovers. Olympus skiers talk of “ski-ing in the lap of the gods” and they boast a field spanning three basins with a great choice of runs and considerable variety of slope.

A few kilometres from Lake Ida, Mount Olympus is the home of the Windwhistle Winter Sports Club and gets the nor-west snow.

The ski week titles also reflect the variety of the field’s patrons. Rockhoppers week, for example, caters for early season enthusiasts. It seems Mudflappers week

was originally organised by club members from the Lake Ellesmere district while Dogtuckers week is a reference to age. Sunlovers week, otherwise known as CER, is largely put on for Australians. Club ski weeks at Olympus will cost nonmembers $3OO (including food and daily instruction) this year and already the three school holidays weeks and Sun-

lovers (mostly with Australians), from September 10 to 16, are fully booked. One club member extolled Olympus as a great place to go family ski-ing

for a week and a very cheap way of doing so. About 40 persons can be accommodated in the centrally heated main hut on the field itself and another 12 in the bottom

hut at the lower car park. Olympus has had electric power for the last three years. From the bottom hut to the top car park four-wheel-drive is still required. After the trauma of a non-ski-ing year in 1987, Olympus had some good snow last season and four of its ski weeks proceeded. Among the activities on the mountain this winter will be the annual Farmers’ Cup fun racing week-end with a fellow ski club, Amuri, on August 13 and 14. © Mount Olympus, Windwhistle Winter Sports Club, 128 km from Christchurch via Windwhistle, four rope tows, vertical lift 450 metres. Adult lift charges: $2O.