FORGET THE FROTHY NEW WAVE TUNES OF THE EIGHTIES. DOWN IN THE SOUTHERN LAKES, WE WERE MAKING OUR OWN WAVE. MULLETED BUG- EYED ADRENALINE SEEKERS, DIY-ING OUR KIT, BUSH-BASHING, SKIING, PADDLING AND, OFTEN, SWIMMING, UP AND DOWN OUR MOUNTAINS, THOUGH OUR FORESTS, IN OUR RIVERS. BEFORE THE DAYS OF CORPORATE TEAMS AND SPONSORED ATHLETES, WITH NO TRACKING DEVICES OR EQUIPMENT CHECKS, THE EARLY UNREGULATED MOUNTAIN MULTISPORT EVENTS SPOKE TO A MASOCHISTIC STREAK IN THE KIWI PSYCHE.
“This country goes off every weekend. It’s insane. You’ve got people falling off mountains, flying downhill on mountain bikes, kayaking.” Filmmaker Michael Firth was amongst it. The creator of two classic Kiwi adventure films and the 52-episode action sport series Adrenalize, he presented aspects of New Zealand culture across a number of genres.
His debut documentary, Off the Edge (1977), narrated a skiing and hang-gliding mission in Aoraki / Mount Cook and was widely acknowledged for its spectacular footage in the Southern Alps. It was the first New Zealand documentary to earn an Oscar nomination.
A decade later, Mike’s road trip flick The Leading Edge reflected the evolution of wild, bogan sport in the Southern Alps. With a narrative based around the Alpine Ironman, a slightly mad multisport event, it has become a classic.
Held over three days in October 1980 and based in the Wānaka area, the Alpine Ironman was Aotearoa’s first backcountry multisport competition. Starting from End Peak near Treble Cone, competitors skied down to the snowline then tussock-jumped with their skis on their backs to the Matukituki River on the valley floor, descending an estimated 2000 vertical metres in the process. A frantic downriver paddle followed, then the race finished with a run, still carrying skis, into town.
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Invention often trumped experience. One Wānaka local, Sam McLeod, reputedly hacked his skis in half with an axe to fit into his backpack for the run – apparently they were his brother’s, who was unaware of the loan. The competitors with limited kayaking experience spent much of the “paddle” clinging onto their boats.
The race was organised by Robin Judkins (now Robin Judkins, ONZM), who went on to use the ski/ run/paddle format for two more years in Wānaka, four in the hills around Methven and three in Queenstown.
More events followed. There was the glamorous heli-accessed Powder Eights event in the Harris Mountains, the Cardrona Cup and Treble Cone Triathlon, a dual-mountain multisport comp including moguls, more Eights, a Giant Slalomand a gelande. A terrifying form of fixed-heel ski jumping, gelande is sort of like the Nordic jumping we know from the Olympics, but with normal skis and bindings. The aforementioned McLeod attempted both the GS and the gelande with a partner, riding a pair of 225cm downhill skis fitted with two sets of bindings.
Judkins hustled, cajoled and worked all angles to get his menu of out-there, often chaotic, events over the line. His creative way of using the mountains and waterways boomed, and Judkins went on to develop the two classic endurance trials he has become widely known for: the 22-day, 2500-kilometre length of New Zealand Xerox Challenge, and the Coast to Coast from Kumara on the West Coast to the beach at Sumner, 243 kilometres away. Launched in 1983 with 79 starters, the Coast to Coast now attracts upwards of 840 individuals and teams.
Judkins also got involved in film projects, including one that was to become a New Zealand classic. Some of the hottest skiers of the day were cast for The Leading Edge: Christine Grant and her brother, the late Bruce Grant, who both represented New Zealand in Downhill at the 1984 Olympics in Sarajevo; New Zealand ski team member Evan Bloomfield; and highly-regarded ski mountaineer Mark Whetu. Canadian-born ex-pro mogul skier Mathurin Molgat played the lead role, the inimitable Billy T James stepped in with a loose- unit performance as a novice mountain pilot, and Judkins, as well as serving as associate producer, played himself.
Mathurin had briefly met Michael Firth in Queenstown in the mid-eighties, and while ski guiding and ice climbing in Chamonix, he got a call from the director asking him to come back to New Zealand and help him make a film. It was quite the ride. After a successful pitch to investment firm Fay, Richwhite for funding (to Mathurin’s surprise, Michael asked him to present a business plan), it was all on, and they headed to Queenstown to scout for talent.
“The only people I knew there were Mark Whetu and (mountain guide/pilot) Gavin Wills. Gavin and I rode the chair at The Remarkables looking for skiers, and we spotted Bruce Grant.” Approach made, accepted, and the movie was rolling. “It was beautiful. The whole script was made up as it went along.” When Bruce really did break his leg during the shoot, Firth decided it should be part of the story, as a wee lesson in the perils of skiing powder-loaded crust. “Just ski faster,” Bruce says – cut to a shot of his hospital bed. “Ski faster, huh? Mate.”
If you haven’t seen it, check out The Leading Edge online on NZ On Screen. The road-trip narrative follows a Telluride patroller, Matt, hitching around the country with his skis, hitting pretty much every mountain along the way. He gets a ride with Bruce, who is making his way south to compete in the Alpine Ironman, along with Christine, Evan and Melanie Forbes, and decides to take on the Ironman with them.
There’s cheese, yahoo-ing and, as in Off the Edge, world-class skiing without a groomer in sight. In particular, it’s also a study in the kind of old- school skiing you’ll still see today in accomplished clubfield skiers of a certain vintage: tightly- compact stance and legs of sprung steel, torquey power straight from the core levered by muscular pole plants, poppy short turns honed from years of punching through swampy South Pacific powder on the narrow skis of another era. Volkl P9. Dynamic VR17. Spalding. Erbacher. Rossignol SM. Think 207cms of rigid fibreglass designed to dive, maybe 65mm underfoot with an 80mm shovel.
Turning radius? Dream on. And the boots? Pure sadism. The merest sniff of a Southerly, and you’d need a crowbar to prise them off your dead feet at the end of the day.
The film especially articulates a Queenstown wintertime culture many longer-term residents look back on fondly, one characterised by après ski at the Arthurs Point Tavern and the Eichardt’s public bar with the Ski Whizz videos upstairs. “Queenstown was completely different then, not too competitive, really welcoming,” Mathurin recalls. After competing on the World Cup freestyle tour in aerials and moguls, Mathurin had spent time guiding and climbing in Chamonix alongside the likes of steep skiing icon Patrick Vallençant. Coming to Queenstown and witnessing the low profile of our high-achieving alpine folk was an eye-opener after hanging out with Euro alpine rock stars. “I was blown away by the calibre of skiers and climbers.”
Filming The Leading Edge was a transformative experience for Mathurin, with a number of challenges. The film-makers used locals as extras, who kept trying to speed ahead during racing scenes, upsetting the shot. Then there was the carnage involving a mob of kayaks heading into the 170-metre long, and highly dangerous, Oxenbridge Tunnel on the Kawarau River during the paddling leg of the Alpine Ironman. According to Mathurin, “none of us were pro-kayakers. The health and safety was pure cowboy.” Or, as the character Matt says during a helicopter approach to a mountain ridge in the clouds, “these kids aren’t playing with a full deck.”
The technical aspects of mountain filming with 35mm equipment were also arduous, but Michael had high-calibre film expertise at his side, including cinematographer Stuart Dryburgh and pilot Gavin Wills, who were more than up for it. And, for Mathurin, the unregulated heli-access to the alpine landscape was an incredible experience. “I had 80 hours of helicopter time to land and ski wherever.”
In Off the Edge, the footage of superb skiing and hang-gliding skills are still, in the era of GoPros and 4K, remarkable. Made over two years, the crew spent nine months on location filming around the Tasman Glacier. There was drama from the start. On the first day of filming, Gavin who was an alpine guide for the project, was lucky to survive an avalanche which swept him 1800 feet down a slope. A cameraman with no climbing experience and who couldn’t ski was simply dropped off alone on a rocky outcrop by helicopter and picked up later in the day.
Michael Firth died in 2016. He is now considered to be one of the country’s least-known accomplished film makers. Described by NZ On Screen as “an unheralded figure in the New Zealand film renaissance,” Michael’s talent for New Zealand stories had a broad brush. As well as earning acclaim for his work depicting adventure, fishing, and the action sports series Adrenalize, he delved into deeper topics. Heart of the Stag (1984) starring Bruno Lawrence as an itinerant farmhand in the King Country, was a psychological drama about incest that was named NZ Film of the Year by Metro magazine. And Sylvia (1985), a biopic of ground-breaking educator Sylvia Ashton-Warner, also received local and international praise.
Mathurin says Mike’s approach to marketing films was another talent, using approaches like the US-style tactic of having multiple releases across the country to gain maximum exposure, instead of having a single copy making its way down country. “He was really innovative, thinking outside of the mainstream.”
As for The Leading Edge, he says, “I’m glad I was there.” So are we.
WORDS: TIM BREWSTER
PHOTOS: Supplied by Greg Taylor
