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By John ‘Ziggy’ Matkovic

Wednesday, 5 October 2005

Names such as Craigieburn, Broken River and Temple Basin are part of folklore and legend. Mythical tales passed down from generation to generation, the holy grail of snowboarding as it were! Do these amazing places truly exist or are they simply tall tales told by travellers?

The rumours of steep vertical, awesome backcountry terrain inbounds, powder bowls and uncrowded slopes? Is there a secret map that needs to be found? Wizards and Orcs to avoid, and what of this Nutcracker the legends speak of? We decided to find out if the legends were true!

The adventure begins in Christchurch, the gateway to New Zealand's South Island. Finding yourself a good vehicle, preferably a 4WD and a good map of the Canterbury Region is essential. Next locate Highway SH73 on the map and begin the mission, 60 minutes on from Christchurch, pass through the town of Darfield and head further up the highway to Springfield (no Simpson jokes please!), here it begins , drop into CHILL HQ in front of the Springfield Café.

CHILL HQ  is the place to organise equipment, lift passes ($350 kiwi for a 10 day lift pass accessing 10 different club fields) and catch up on general information for the adventures ahead and to familiarise yourself with the Nutcracker! The Nutcracker is the essential tool required to embark on this adventure, it is the only way to access these legendary areas.

On seeing the Nutcracker, and with eyes in disbelief as we get the rundown on how to use this mythical device, I'm starting to think, it might be easier taking on a bunch of Orcs with my shovel. The Nutcracker is attached to a harness which you strap on around your waist and thighs, it is basically a clamp which you must use to swing over the rope so that you connect onto the pulley driven rope tows in order to access the terrain.
Without the Nutcracker there is no way to get up the slopes (unless of course you want to hike for hours and hours) For more detailed instructions check here.

With Nutcrackers, harnesses and glove protectors checked in, the other essential item would be chains, without chains you haven't got a beeswax chance of getting up the tracks to the ski areas when there is any fresh snowfalls .... slipping into a ditch or trees would not be a good idea.

On leaving Springfield drive another 30 minutes up Highway 73 where you will find the sleepy village of Castle Hill. This is a great base of operations for the days ahead. Comfortable Cabins for rent and B&Bs can be found (organise this prior to coming to NZ), plenty of firewood needed to keep from freezing to death during hours of darkness.

The plan is hatched to locate and access Broken River, hidden away in the Craigieburn National Park, the turn off is 10 minutes away, driving through dirt road switchbacks cutting back and forth through tree lined slopes, you really do feel that you are about to experience something special, 10 more minutes of slipping and sliding through snow, ice and dirt we roar into the carpark, immediately noticing the goods lift towering up into the snow covered trees.
Here we load our boards and backpacks into the goods lift, speaking to a mysterious god like voice, we ask them to take our gear up as we head off up the dark tracks through the snow tunnel of trees ... switch back after switchback, one foot in front of the other for what seems like an eternity. Finally our weary legs emerge into the tree top village. Tracking in we collect our breath and retrieve our gear. We're not there yet, some work still to be done we load up and set off, further up the mountain, higher and higher we go hiking up the tracks, past the Mountain lodges and giant stairs.

Suddenly we are break through the trees, the views are nothing short of  spectacular, high above us Broken River beckons. After a hard slog and 40 minutes or so of hiking we make our way to the Access Tow. We are about to experience our first Nutcracker... holy shit!

It looks as hard as it sounded on our briefing and it can be.
After a few humorous failures, which result in much frustration and expletives, success is driven through pure stubbornness; I'm getting up this bloody nutcracker even if it kills me!

I didn't come all this way not be able to get up this dam rope ... With one hand holding onto the rope tow firmly, and starting to move up the slope, the other hand swinging the nutcracker over the rope and clamping firmly, hold on tight I'm off riding the tow, click clack clunk through the pulleys up the mountain I go, hey this isn't so bad after all.... (if your are  to believe the ski patrol, some big name's in snowboarding have spat the dummy about not being able to get up the hill using the nutcrackers)

Access turns into the Rugby Tow and at the top underneath the chutes of Nervous Knob,  simply release your nutcracker and ride away, down to the wonderfully cool Palmer Lodge , where you can sit and relax on the deck for a bit,  after all the hard work hiking up and enjoy the views ...

Broken River Ski area is just fantastic!  Two huge bowls (Broken River Basin and Allan's Basin) with plenty of rollers and kickers just waiting to be hit, the steep chutes of Margaret's Gulch off the peak of Nervous Knob (1815m) are ace, the many ridge lines off Allan's Basin to drop into and the fun powder face of Sunny peak off to the left of the Main tow, tons of options.

I kid you not, no crowds (the 4 of us and the ski patrol had one day to ourselves - you simply can't beat that), great cover, wicked terrain … I for one was very impressed the legends are true. The ski patrol are friendly and more than willing to share a tale or two, the overall vibe is very casual and relaxed - a world a way from the crowds and modernisation of the commercial resorts. Broken River Rocks!

( A friendly warning - be aware though the Main Tow can be a lot of grief at first, as I found out after many failed attempts I felt like my arms had been pulled out of there sockets ..why? Well as a regular the Main Tow rope is behind your back, and this makes it a touch harder to hook onto and the pulleys are very close to your hips ...once you have it sorted it's no problem at all just be prepared for some humiliation in the short term).

Craigieburn is up next its reputation precedes itself, steep, very steep, wide open powder bowls, and can be found only another few minutes up  Highway 73, far easier to access with only a 5 minute walk from the car park after a few minutes driving up through the hill. Again be warned that these rope tows are steeper taking on 500 meters of vertical and the advice is that you should be a intermediate regular or advanced goofy to take it on.

A perfect bluebird day awaits us with 20cm of fresh. Awesome, once you make your way up to the top of the very originally named Top tow, and stand there looking down on the bowls and across the ridge lines from above you realise just how wicked Craigieburn is.

Hiking up to the Hamilton peak, take a left from the top of the Top tow, a great run down the Hamilton face is on, slicing through untracked powder, racking up big turns, and down through the chutes. Back up and across to the ridge line to the right of the Top tow, a hike and drop into a triple black diamond chute (I wasn't aware of this when I decided to drop in), nice wide open spaces opening up underneath me coming out and laying in some big carving powder turns down to the Whakamaru lodge for some refreshments.

Ready for more hiking again along the ridge line and dropping into the absolutely magnificent Middle Basin (which is often compared to a heli run), a massive powder bowl with 600 metres of vertical down to the road below the car park. Snowboarding simply doesn't get much better than this.
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# Note - Craigieburn is actually right next to Broken River , and the boundary is Hamilton Peak (1922m), it is possible to drop into Broken River from here , but that's a hell of a lot of hard work to make your way back from Broken River.

Temple Basin ski area is located 4km up from Arthur's Pass, which is about  a 45 minute drive from Castle Hill on Highway 73, once again a goods lift takes all your gear up to the ski area, as you set about on a 45 minute hike up through the national park.

Unfortunately for us on this occasion, the snow cover had been wiped out by rain, we missed out on the powder as we were making the best of it at Craigieburn and Broken River, only one rope tow was open and the conditions were ordinary .....disappointing indeed as the terrain needs to be seen to be believed.... the free riding would be just incredible really!
Transworld Snowboarding has been quoted as saying "if I had to stay in one area, on one mountain to snowboard the rest of my life, it would be Temple Basin, its that good." That's high praise indeed and I can definitely see why, with a good cover of snow the temple would even be god's choice to go snowboarding. Will definitely be back to sample the goods here in the future... no doubt about that .

The Nutcracker experience is truly unique and a very special one, that you will remember for many years, this is what snowboarding / skiing would have been like in the early pioneering days of the sport. Discovering steep chutes and wide open powder bowls, amazing terrain with only a handful of punters on the slopes, almost like you have the whole mountain environment to immerse yourself in, lose yourself in the spectacular views that await you on every peak.

It's a lot more work than what you are used to, but the rewards are more than worth it do yourself a favour, grab a nutcracker and discover the club fields for yourself.

Check out the following websites for more information:

www.chillout.co.nz
www.brokenriver.co.nz
www.craigieburn.co.nz
www.templebasin.co.nz