SOUTHERN ALPS

Southland Times, Issue 20791, 4 June 1929, Page 5

SOUTHERN ALPS

THE SKI-ING SEASON. Overseas visitors to the Dominion are delighted to find that snow has already fallen in the Southern Alps and that the ski-ing season is practically established at the Hermitage, Mount Cook. Mr D. F. Anderson, son of the chairman of- the Orient Line, was of the opinion that for devotees of this sport the Alps are "quite as good as Switzerland.” The methods of the guides, however, as regards their ski-ing time-table thus early in the season, is rather mystifying. A city-dweller was astonished when he heard recently that they were packing stores ten miles up the Tasman Glacier from the Ball Hut to the Malte Brun on ski and by moonlight! It was explained that they were doing this so as to take full advantage of the crisp surface laid on the snow by the frost. To make a better run for tourists they keep always more or less on the same track—chosen for its safety, and for avoidance of any as yet thin patches of snow. When travelling in an up-hill direction they wear seal-skins on their ski, the pores of whict prevent them from slipping back, but on the return journey they race down the frosty surface of their track at a uniform speed of twenty miles an hour.