Want to become a better skier? Turoa Report, New Zealand

Turoa Ski Area, located in the center of New Zealand’s North Island, lives on Mt. Ruapehu in Tongariro National Park. They opened a week late due to lack of snow, and since then, we’ve seen some snow, rain, gnarly winds, and runs filled with ice and rock. Needless to say, I’m in love with this place. Why, you ask?

The people – I’ve never met nicer, more welcoming people in my entire life. The people in New Zealand, and more specifically the small mountain town of Ohakune, are super easy going and so easy to strike up a conversation with. At my first New Zealand meal in the Auckland Internatinal Airport McDonalds, I ate and had a pleasant conversation with Ivan, a 60 year old Maori (indigenous Polynesian people of New Zealand) farmhand who was at the airport to pickup his old friend from South Africa.

The town – Ohakune is one of the small ski towns at the base of Mt. Ruapehu. There’s one main road that connects the bars to the grocery store and banks. Also, no stop lights. One thing that makes ski towns so special, especially the smaller ones, is that everyone there is living the dream. Smiles all around.

The terrain – it’s SICK. While I haven’t skied any of the gnarly terrain yet, I’ve had plenty of looks at it. It looks amazing. Up top, there are huge cliffs and chutes and tons of snow. Down lower, there are tons of gullies that resemble natural half pipes as well as natural kickers galore. Once we get another dump, it’s GAME ON. From everything I’ve heard, this place has the best resort terrain in New Zealand (and Australia for that matter).

The conditions this week were a bit firm, and there were rocks scattered in the middle of some runs. ‘Early season conditions’ would be an understatement. From my perspective, the smaller rocks were fun little obstacles to ski around and the larger rocks with snow on them provided fun launch pads to pop from and practice my spread eagle ball grabs. Added to that, it’s the start of school holidays (winter break) for New Zealand school kids, which means a huge rush of families trying to get their ski fix in. With the limited terrain open at the moment, ‘carnage’ came to mind multiple times as I skied down the ‘Boneyard’ just above the Giant chairlift.

I would call the current on-mountain product at Turoa challenging, to say the least. But if you want to be the shit, you have to ski the shit. The best training advice that I received last season from an old Tahoe veteran was to go and “Find the shittiest, gnarliest, iciest, steepest snow you can find and try to ski it well.” Well my friend, I think I’ve found plenty of that here. And when the snow does come (because it always does), it’s gonna be epic. So if you want to become a better skier, you should come check this place out.