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Owning a boutique skifield would be paradise to most snow lovers but the Scotts of Rees Valley sheep station wouldn’t mind if someone took over theirs.
The Scotts and partners set up Invincible Snowfields on the station in 1995 when heli-skiers found its slopes great sport.
Choppers flew in steel and wet concrete for the hut in 1995 and for the ski tow with its 16 pylons in 1996.
They flew in builders and a dismantled tractor to power the tow. The 700-metre “nut-cracker” tow takes skiers and snowboarders up 300m in altitude to nearly 1800m above sea level.
Kate Scott says the skifield area compares with some big commercial fields. However, generally eight to 16 people at most have Invincible to themselves.
Helicopters fly in skiers and boarders. This pushes prices up. For those who stay in the hut two nights, for three days on the snow, prices as this is written – including flights – range from $785 per head in a party of 10 to about $980 a head for five.
Helicopters pick them up just below the old Invincible mine. Customers bring food or buy from a caterer.
Some want to walk in to cut costs but the route winds up an avalanche-prone creek and staff, who go in with parties, don’t want to hike in.
Scott describes the main field as being on a shoulder, which makes it more secure from avalanches than some fields in basins. Staff supply transceivers which act as locator beacons in an avalanche.
Boarders, feet strapped sideways, find the tow more awkward than skiers, but those who visit praise the snow. Invincible, being all off-piste, suits only experienced skiers.
The cost of helicopter access gives Invincible a narrow market of ardent snow-sporters not in pursuit of the après-ski social scene.
“It costs money but it’s not a luxury thing,” Scott says.
Soaring fuel prices play hell with the field’s viability. The cost of putting a road in would be crippling. Worse to the Scotts, it would scar the landscape.
“We don’t want a road in our terrain.”
Hired patrollers and the Scott family – Kate and brother Eric, who is building hours to become a commercial helicopter pilot, Kate’s partner, Justin Stogdale – staff the field.
Kate and Eric are the fourth generation of their family to run Rees Valley station, and Kate’s heart lies in farming merino sheep and beef cattle.
With high country farming in a down cycle, off-station jobs help at present. Kate works part-time as Glenorchy School secretary, Eric works for contractors, and mother Iris is Glenorchy’s vet.
The station hosts a horse-trekking venture run by others, and the Scotts wouldn’t mind if someone else ran Invincible. After tourism forays, they prefer providing a venue for others to run these businesses.
“They flourish under someone more passionate about it than we are at the moment. It’s not our first priority.”
Present wool prices don’t generate enough disposable income to “fluff around with skifields,” Scott added.
However, there’s no rush. Invincible doesn’t drain cash. Marketing’s word of mouth, and the Scotts open the field only for pre-booked customers and when snow’s suitable.
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