Road Trip – Awakino

Awakino is a tiny little club field 3hrs north of Queenstown.  For the last 2 years AJ and I have been talking about doing a mission up there.

Last weekend we finally shook the sand out of our v-jay-jays and got up there.

It has been a tough year snow wise but the planets aligned, the opportunity presented itself and we had a vehicle that could get us all the way up to the ski field (ow yeah the road makes the Remarks road look like a freeway).  We knew the snow wouldn’t be that good but since we didn’t know anyone else who had been up there, a recon mission was in order.

Here is a couple of pics of the ‘base area’.  It is no Beaver Creek….

The trail map did say there were 3 lifts (all knuckle-crackers of course).  However, there wasn’t quite enuf snow to open the beginner lift and the higher lift we were told hasn’t worked since the late 1900’s.  I couldn’t make this stuff up.

We made the most of it though – here is Nursey on her first ever knuckle-cracker.  Very very well done for a first attempt!!!!

It is a good thing that Nursey was successful in her first knuckle-cracker ride because she had to get up the hill to check on AJ’s knuckles.  About 2 rollers further up the hill from this photo AJ ran three fingers through the roller.

It was a pretty day though and due to AJ and I consuming nearly 2 bottles of Scotch – we arrived up the hill (300m above the lodge) after midday which was perfect timing for the softening snow conditions.

The original plan was to spend another night up at Awakino.  We knew there was a storm coming and we had supplies for an extended trip. But we decided to call it quits and head back to Queenstown on Saturday afternoon.  AJ’s fingers were black, we were 2 bottles of scotch down and some of the other guests didn’t like us going to bed at 3am.

I’ll definitely be back to Awakino – great lodge, great people and some pretty serious skiing to be had on a normal snow year.