January 28, 2012

David Wilson and Mt Hutt Skifield have been partners for 11 years, but that partnership has ended, David's signed off as mountain manager and with his family is moving to Christchurch for a new life and new challenges. He shares with reporter SUE NEWMAN that 11-year mountain journey.

In the 11 years he's been manager of Mt Hutt Skifield, David Wilson reckons he's had the best job in the world.
His workplace has been the world's playground and he's spent every day with people who were more like friends than employees.
He's the mountain's longest-serving manager, but he's decided it's time to call it quits, to find new challenges.
And for the Wilson family that means moving from rural Methven to big-city Christchurch.
It wasn't a decision that was made lightly, but when you feel the challenge has gone, you have to try something new.
He's yet to test the job market, but said, as a qualified accountant with years of management behind him, he's optimistic the right job will come along.
With the big call to bow out of the ski industry that's been his home for many years, David said he could look back and know that every minute of those years had been minutes well spent.
In today's terms he was a latecomer to skiing, making his first tracks on the snow at 15.
He quickly developed a love of the sport that saw him spend most of his spare time there while studying commerce at Otago University, on southern skifields.
Post-university David headed to Europe and scored a dream job working as a ski holiday guide during the winter and as an accountant in London during the summer.
After four years he knew he couldn't squeeze another week out of his work visa and returned home.
He counts himself lucky that he landed the job of finance manager with the Mt Cook Group in Queenstown.
"My office was on Coronet Peak in the uniform cupboard.
"It was great. I had amazing views and I could go out and ski whenever I wanted to."
After three years of counting cash, the manager's job at Mt Hutt came up.
He beat off a long line of competitors and won the job that was to make him very public property.
It was a very different beast 11 years ago, to today's mountain.
Its lifts were old and it was a skifield ripe for redevelopment.
And that became David's challenge.
His first three years in the job were years of planning for a future that would include dramatic change.
"We had nine lifts on the field in 2005 and in what was probably the biggest change in any ski area in the country we undertook a redevelopment that saw only one of those lifts left. The rest were either changed or replaced.
"In that one year we changed from T-bars and platter lifts to having three chairs and one magic carpet.
We went from nine lifts to four and we handled more people."
That change wasn't achieved without a backlash of outrage from skiers. The new lifts, many said would fail in a high wind, but the Mt Hutt team was one step ahead. The lifts were designed and weighted to withstand virtually anything the weather Gods could throw at them.
"With all this change, it was a whole new mountain and over those years we've also built our infrastructure up and that's been a great challenge.
"We now have all our resources in one spot. It used to be manic, they were based all over the place. Now it's a simpler and easier mountain to run."
David steered the field through significant change in the runs it offered skiers, commissioning major on-mountain earthworks.
"What was missing on the mountain was novice–intermediate terrain so we addressed this with Highway 72 and we put in a new road to the top of the Virgin Mile to open up access to the righthand side of the field."
Mt Hutt was the first skifield in New Zealand to containerise its magic carpet and the first to introduce streamlined ski rental based around a basic three-boot system which colour-coded boots to skis.
"That sped up rentals phenomenally, particularly with the big school groups; we can get 450 kids in here at a time and we need to get them through and on the mountain as quickly as possible."
The new system did just that. Add to that hosting the ANC Cup for the past six years, being the first field in the country to have its own skier information radio station and the newer innovation of dinner with the stars, and it all paints a picture of a mountain that has changed, developed and reinvented itself over the past decade, David said.
Inevitably life as a skifield manager is not all good news, and over those 11 years, David said he'd experienced some difficult times.
The spate of deaths on the mountain in 2010 was one of those.
"That was the worst year on the mountain. It was pretty tough for everyone, one of those years that hadn't happened before and I hope won't happen again.
"You take those deaths personally and you don't ever forget them."
In all of those years, he's experienced just one overnighter, where the mountain was closed trapping skiers and staff on the field.
"It was a really interesting night, a tough situation but everyone made the best of it.
"Safety will always over-ride inconvenience and we had only one person we had to take out.
"A guy was so sick we had to take him down the mountain on a snow groomer through the storm."
In a crisis, you could always count on mountain staff to come through.
Often the more risk involved the more they thrived; that was the nature of people who chose to work in extreme climates, he said.
As the operation of Mt Hutt has became well oiled, the Wilson family has managed to have a little more time to enjoy the field together, grabbing the odd family day out on the slopes.
His children have always been mountain kids, on the snow before they could walk and helping out in different departments as they got older.
They'll miss that involvement, that feeling part of mountain life, David said.
"Mt Hutt is made up of so many great people, people who are so committed to the mountain and who are so enthusiastic.
"This hasn't been just a job for me, it's been a lifestyle and it's important for me to leave Mt Hutt well, so I'm happy to be around for a while to ensure the transition goes well."
He sees a strong future for the skifield and believes it will come back from the past two years when a combination of late snow, lean snow, ash clouds, earthquakes and an economic downturn saw skier numbers drop.
"The next couple of years will be bounce back years and I believe the next steps in development for the mountain will be in the area of transport, bus transport that is regular, say every 20 minutes, transport that people know is regular and reliable."
He doesn't see a base-to-field gondola on the short term horizon; the long distance involved making it a tough (and expensive) engineering challenge.
The field itself is in good nick with top rental gear, snowgroomers that are only two years old and base buildings that are up to date. It's well set up, David said.
In terms of capacity, Mt Hutt doesn't have too much room to grow.
It's biggest day ever saw 3500 skiers on the slopes and that means a full car park and long queues for tows.
Put an extra 100 on the field and the only thing that changes is the length of the tows, he said.
He doesn't see summer activities on the mountain as a thing of the future either.
Far better to pour the money these would absorb into winter when the returns are much better, he said.
Perhaps one of the biggest changes, however, will be coming to the field this winter as just another skier.
"It will be nice to be able to ski without your cellphone going off all the time.
"In winter it's basically 24/7, it's always on your mind, but with so many good people up there you're not indispensible.
"There's close to 200 years of experience in the team of 15 leaders, it's a good team."
As well as signing off as mountain manager, David will also be resigning as a member of the Methven Community Board and the Mt Hutt Marketing Group.
He'll miss them all, has enjoyed his time being at the heart of the business of the Methven village, loved seeing the different sides of the community his family has called home.
Yes, there's much they'll miss he said, but they'll be regular winter visitors and plan to live on the western side of Christchurch to make the trip to Mt Hutt as short as possible.
"We'll definitely miss the smaller community.
"When you're leaving, you suddenly realise it won't be around you and you realise what you'll miss."
Fiona and the three Wilson children start their new life next week as the new school year kicks in, she'll be teaching full time and the children will be adjusting to a new school. David will remain in Methven helping the transition to new mountain manager James McKenzie. After that he'll start job hunting.
"I'll be looking for a general manager-CEO type of job, something working with people, but it will be nice to have a bit of a break and reassess things.
"We feel very blessed to have this flexibility at this stage in our lives – I might get used to being a kept man."

Pictured top: Swapping Methven and Mt Hutt Skifield for city life, Emma, 12, Joel, 8 and 10-year-old Izaac Wilson with dad ex-Mt Hutt manager David and mum Fiona.

Photo Tetsuro Mitomo