The White Room

By Sam Masters

Do not think. Feel. You are deep in the white room: engulfed in a cloud of powder snow at the deepest point of your turn. 

The white room is the ultimate test of your freeride smarts: a vertigo-inducing netherworld of possibility and intrigue. It’s a barrage of face shots, a passport to pleasure, an endorphin overload, and a chance to faceplant into another dimension. 

The apex of every turn is a sensory deprivation chamber of ephemeral joy. The white room mocks your sense of uphill, and down. Of near and far. Of fast and slow. In this world of misinformation, you can’t trust your own senses. Just don’t let the difference between your own truth and the actual topography get any wider than the hospital operating table. 

There’s a moment of bliss in every face shot when the mountains disappear, and your next turn seems like years away. The humdrum of your conscious mind falls away, and you’re left trawling the darkest pleasure receptors of your reptilian brain. This is the most intense meditative state in snowsports; this is the hook, line and sinker of mountain life…

Mt Olympus after a big snow storm

Powder snow is the reason you endure the cold, buy the pass, skip work/school/anniversaries, and head to the mountains. Powder snow is the can of froth that every rider pops as often as they can. This is the allure and addiction of powder riding. For skiers and snowboarders this is religion. 

What is the best way to choose a powder resort? Maybe you flew over it on the way to Vegas, and had to be restrained from leaping out of the plane by the flight attendants. Perhaps you just ran your hands over a globe to see which bits were the pointiest. If you were really addicted, then you probably stared at a ski-resort trail map in a fevered fantasy all the way through high school. Or you could just be sucked into a mountain party town on the first day of winter, like every other fashion victim. 

The more discerning adventurer knows the appeal of the Selwyn Six; that select group of Kiwi ski resorts that cherish and protect the very soul of New Zealand freeride. These resorts fall into two distinct groups; Craigieburn, Mt Olympus, Temple Basin and Broken River are for the more adventurous. Porters with a chairlift and T-bars and Cheeseman with T-bars offer a more commercial experience.  At their best they offer a globally unique snowsports experience… and when is a resort not at its best but on a powder day?

Skier at Temple Basin in the White Room

One thing is certain – you can’t wait for perfect powder. By then your quads will be flabby, your binding springs rusted, ski bases crusty, and your game gone. The perils of procrastination are simply more devastating at altitude. When it comes to snow, perfection only comes along once you have paid your dues, racked up your (vertical) miles, and done your time (on the lift). It usually arrives unheralded and unexpected; blowing through the window of opportunity left open by the eternal optimist in your ski crew. 

The real secret to powder perfection is that thirst, that burning desire, that overwhelming urge to ensure you have a better day than anyone stuck down on the flatlands. Your mission is to be an agent of COMO – Confirmation Of Missing Out – to anyone foolish enough to remain in your circle of influence. 

Skier at Broken River in the White Room

You have a very particular set of skills, skills acquired over a very long career, skills that make you a nightmare for people who like to ride untracked powder. Your snow radar is military-grade. If there is any kind of soft or hero snow on the mountain, you will find it. You will track it out. And you will tell all your buddies.

You have an innate understanding of aspect and altitude, wind and weather, temperature and time. You sense - rather than see - the arc of the sun; as it turns ice to corn, or powder to gloop. You can set a ferocious uphill traverse, have Jedi mind control over ski patrol, and know the mountain like the back of your… skis.  

Imperfect conditions unmask the true “Selwyn Six” powder fiend; the complete rider whose principal skill is ripping in snow that isn’t quite right. You can make almost any crust breakable, and lap up the sugar underneath like saccharine powder. A few centimetres of pow on the Craigieburn Range becomes bottomless when you work the drifts. Long after the dilettante has returned to pleasures of the hot tub, coffee machine, or hand-poured lager you are still on the hill; laying carves through the variable goodness at Porters, Craigieburn, Cheeseman, Broken River, Mt Olympus or Temple Basin. 

You are the ultimate snow warrior, whose optimism makes powder deeper. At least when reported to your mates who didn’t make it up to the Selwyn Six that day. Your favourite item of ski attire is a snow-eating grin from finding the goods when others aren’t even looking. Your mission, which you long ago chose to accept, is to pretty much rip – all the time, anytime. You have entered the white room.