Well, I guess it was my idea. Tim and I met Harry at the Knoll Ridge Café . Harry was with Paul, both supping what looked like triple mochaccinos and looking and sounding like those were not their first cups. Paul had joined the party. I’d heard of him; he was reputedly a powerful skier. We skied across to the Far West T Bar and at the top put on skins and headed towards the Crater. Tim quickly glided into his accustomed lead pursued uncomfortably closely by Paul. I settled down at the rear to watch the competition. I was relieved that Harry seemed to be climbing at near to my speed. He complained that his touring gear was inferior and it certainly wasn’t the stuff of the latest catalogues. But it did occur to me that this guru of the lahars, aka “Mr Crater”, normally made this trip in the comfort of a helicopter seat or straddling a snow toboggan. There was talk of the false gap and the lower true gap. Apparently we gained the Plateau by the true one. The ridge to Te Heuheu was eminently skinnable and in no time we were lunching on the summit. I looked down on the Valley T Bar ants with a mixture of envy and superiority. The plan was to ski down to somewhere near the Tama Lakes and then follow the Waihohonu Track to the Desert Road where a compliant DOC officer would be waiting for us with a vehicle and, I assumed, a crate of cold beer courtesy of Her Majesty. The snow had gone back since the big dump but still seemed to stretch almost unbroken to the slopes of Ngauruhoe. The philosophy of the trip was “if it’s white it’s skiable” yet the cauliflowers of icy stuff directly off the top were sobering. But it was a perfect day..no excuses. We headed left and right through the cauliflower patch and soon were harvesting corn, swooping and yahooing down the Waihohonu Ridge, the historic ascent route of Ruapehu. And it went on and on, down and down, in sublime spring snow…..wilderness skiing that seemed improbable in this mecca. The route down the northern side of Pinnacle Ridge looked continuous for a long way, and enticing, so we changed our plans and headed left. From 1700m Tim and Paul skinned back towards the skyline on Pinnacle ridge, eventually past the traditional Tararua AIC snowcave sites. It became an oven for them when the wind dropped and the mist drifted in. Harry and I skied skiing down the Wairere Stream on easy slopes, skinned up to the lower ridge, skied some more and when the snow finally ran out at 1400 metres started walking though the subalpine. Harry had wisely brought his runners. The big snow had only just melted and in no time I browned the rear of my salopettes when my ski boots slipped from under me on innocuous clay banks. After a cruise through the beech forest we laid our gear down in the sun at the Public Shelter near The Chateau. I didn’t even think to ask Harry whether the guy at the Desert Road had been told of our route change. Descent from Te Heuheu, September 2008 - Harry Keys, Tim Stern, Paul Bradshaw and John Nankervis. John Nankervis