Hold the date! Catherine Gafa is is organising a club event to this historic hut. It's also near where the club was first founded! More information to come. 

CLUB HISTORY

Our founders were William (Bill) Mead, a railway draughtsman stationed at Ngaruawahia, and Bernard Drake, a railway clerk of Wellington. Imbued with an adventurous spirit, they imported two pairs of skis from Switzerland, as well as a British ski instruction book which provided them with the rudiments of their new sport. They tested their skis in July 1913 on the eastern (Desert Road) slopes of Ruapehu near the Waihohonu Hut, and on their fifth day the pioneers began their first ski tour, reaching the present Whakapapa skifield. Mead and Drake promptly formed the Ruapehu Ski Club, posting a notice at the Waihohonu Hut, and returned in the summer of 1913 to make on Boxing Day the first ascent to the crater with skis. They then made the first runs down the Whakapapa Glacier.