Temple Basin milestone

Press, 7 September 1989, Page 30

Temple Basin milestone

VIEWS FROM THE TOP M

by

Tim Dunbar

When Temple Basin in Arthur’s Pass National Park was incorporated as a ski club 60 years ago, it was when everything had to be carried up the mountain — including the tow rope.

A big point is made of this in the invitations Temple Basin has printed for its sixtieth birthday champagne party up in the new lodge this Saturday evening. In a rather witty aside the invitation says, “Even if you don’t have to carry the rope it’s still a great excuse to tie one on.”

Far from having to haul rope, all people have to bring this week-end is themselves, it says. Temple Basin (known until recently as the Christchurch Ski Club) was incorporated as a ski club in September, 1929, and the diamond anniversary is being celebrated close to the actual day. It shares the distinction of being the most venerable club around with the Tasman Ski Club at Fox Peak and the Canterbury Winter Sports Club (now known as Mount Cheeseman) — also both founded in 1929.

For the champagne party the Temple Basin

Ski Club president, Martin Toon, expects both huts to be filled, amounting to about 100 people. “Past, present and future members will be joining together for a social function and for many it will be the opportunity to view the new lodge for the first time,” he said.

They can stay the night for $25 for dinner, bed and breakfast and tackle the club championships in the course of the weekend. “We’ll all be honing our racing skills,” said Mr Toon, presumably in reference to the ski-ing not champagne quaffing.

He said that it was a great occasion for everyone to get together again, pointing out that a lot of the older members still lived in the Arthur Pass township. “The original team lived or had baches in Arthur’s Pass.” Over the last week and a half about, 40 centimetres of snow had fallen in

the Downhill Basin at the Temple Basin and the skiing has been very nice, Mr Toon said. The Temple tow has been used as access.

When the ski weeks finish the field may continue running on weekends until the snow runs out.

The other Canterbury sexagenarian, Cheeseman, had its celebrations before the ski-ing season with a dinner-dance in Christchurch some months ago. Fox Peak has been having a fairly hectic time with the welcome arrival of a snow dump on August 13, and its celebrations will probably be fitted in with the annual meeting of the Tasman Ski Club in Timaru in November. A Tasman club spokesman, Miles Winter, said that after the initial snow in June the field had operated “slightly on a wing and a prayer” for a time, but “got away with

it.” “We’ve been lucky, we had our ski weeks.”

Absence excused

While the New Zealand ski team has been training over the domestic winter its national head coach, Sepp Brunner, has been thousands of kilometres away back in his home town of Oberwolz, Austria, population 800. The reason manifested itself a couple of weeks ago with the arrival of a bouncing baby daughter, Nicola, and we hear Sepp is a very proud father. Oberwolz, incidentally, qualifies as a city because it has a cathedral and can therefore claim distinction as Europe’s smallest city. Wizard battle The Wizard of Christchurch pops up in some strange places and this Saturday afternoon he and about 30 troopers of the Waitati Militia will be marching on • Pembroke Park, Wanaka. They are supposedly surveying a site they have chosen to build retirement homes for “old — and befuddled — soldiers,” but will have to do battle with some

local irregulars. The Aspiring Highlanders have been practising on the rugby field. The battle is part of the third annual Wanaka Snowfest which begins today. Among the events will be a barbecue on the Wanaka T.H.C. Hotel lawn tomorrow and a beer festival in Luggate the same evening. During the week there will be the usual “Main street Mania” — four evenings of team competitions with prizes worth $1750 at last count. Indian, Chinese, Italian and Mexican dishes will feature on various dining nights at the T.H.C. Hotel and some of the town restaurants. Change of scene Not content with her new-found stardom on the netball court the Canterbury and New Zealand shooter, April leremia, is keen to cut a dash on the slopes as well. Rumour has it that the national champion, Simon Wi Rutene, was going to give her a couple of ski lessons this week. Wi Rutene, by the way, is the skier making those tricky tracks in the Kiwi Lager commercial currently showing on television.