![]() ![]() Then he hopes to follow the winter to Canada. With the snow melting away and his job gone, Yates decided to pack up his van and move to South Island, where the skiing has been better. When you do that and then you can’t ski, it’s quite disheartening and yeah, heartbreaking.” ![]() “You move down here and sacrifice six months of your life to commit to skiing. “It’s heartbreaking to see the weather,” Yates said. In mid-August, he was one of about 135 workers - one-third of the staff at the two ski areas - who were laid off. ![]() On some days when Turoa was closed, he was asked to pour coffees in the cafeteria at Whakapapa. But he estimates he managed to teach people on only about a dozen days between frequent mountain closures. ![]() Sam Yates, 21, this year landed his dream job as a ski instructor at Turoa. But there was little on offer for beginners or intermediates. The sports have long been important for attracting foreign tourist dollars to New Zealand and form part of the nation’s identity as an outdoor adventure destination.Īt Turoa this season, workers in snow-grooming machines spent thousands of hours pushing what snow there was onto trails, allowing expert skiers and snowboarders to take the chairlifts to the top of the ski area for limited runs. Should they be forced to close permanently, it would leave North Island, where more than three-quarters of the nation’s 5 million people live, without any major ski areas.Įven in New Zealand’s cooler South Island, climate change is raising questions about the future of skiing and snowboarding. The two ski areas, which are among New Zealand’s largest, are owned by the same company and located on opposite sides of Mount Ruapehu. The disastrous snow season comes after the previous two seasons were severely disrupted by COVID-19, leaving Turoa and its sister ski area Whakapapa on the brink of bankruptcy. ![]()
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