Do sherpas (or similar) exist in New Zealand?

ruapehu would be a pretty grey area if you tried kicking people off without ski passes.... people climb the mountain with skis all the time in winter.... no one can stop someone who wants to climb through the skifield with ski's they could easily claim they are going to ski from the top of the mountain outside the skifield...

Tru that Waynowski. I've walked up through the active skifields without paying when heading upo the mountain. And doing that with skis on my back would be no different. So what do you actually pay for at Ruapehu. The ski lifts? So can you, in theory, could you walk up and ski for free?

Here's the draft Otago Conservation Management Strategy which covers that skifield. http://www.doc.govt.nz/getting-involved/consultations/all-consultations/2011/otago-conservation-management-strategy-consultation/ At a glance I can't see anything obvious about recreational skiing being illegal either inside or outside the commercial skifields. @geeves, do you have any more info on what actually happened?

http://www.odt.co.nz/news/queenstown-lakes/216394/skiers-banned-two-years heres one that came up with a quick search, but theres been a lot of others that I know of too. At Remarks. I, personally had my National (17 ski fields) season pass pulled back in 02 at Remarks for ducking an avalanche closure in the shadow basin. I blew patrol off, but he caught me in the car park. The douche threatened to call the cops on me and stopped me leaving (which was hard cos I hitched up..) anyway its discussed a fair bit here: http://www.boarderzone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3012 in regards to same thing that went down at Two Chair on national tv. Oh shit, I could go on for days about corrupt management at these resorts and I'm dam sure that its not legal either but guys get prosecuted. An, yea anyway back on topic: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10421085 They get fairly serious about it, hiring extra wardens just to check paperwork. http://www.stuff.co.nz/nelson-mail/news/758951/DOC-cracks-down-on-illegal-tours-in-park anyway they don't show actual prosecution outcomes but you get the idea

just a guess , but if you're dressed like you're short of money you may be more likely to be stopped on a skifield to check for your pass...

Thanks for the links. I don't know enough about the codes used for land parcels, but the area with Treble Cone definitely doesn't seem to be any sort of Conservation Area or similar title. Is it meant to be private ownership? Same with Snow Park (which also claims to be on a privately owned farm), even though the area to the east of it is a DOC-managed Marginal Strip (a Conservation Area under the Conservation Act). Even then, the article says those people weren't just on the land -- they were on the chairlift facilities without passes, so cops were probably justified if you're the skifield management. Since it's private land (?) though, maybe they could also have been booted for trespassing. After that it reads as if all the operators in the area have an arrangement to ban them from getting tickets anywhere. I reckon if they showed up at The Remarkables, though, the most that management there would be able to do is refuse to sell them a lift pass or let them use other skifield facilities. It's a public Recreation Reserve and there doesn't seem to be anything about preventing non-skifield recreation anywhere. Disclaimer: I'm definitely not a lawyer and none of this is legal advice for anyone. I just like trying to read up about this stuff and understand what the actual law is instead of guessing. :P

At Whakapapa they also don't care about tickets if you're going down the chairlift. They're only needed for going up. Last time I was there we'd planned to walk up to the Crater Lake and back to the top of The Bruce, but got held up trying to help out an elderly couple who were getting themselves into increasing trouble. When we ran ahead the chairlift guys were okay to keep it running for an extra 20 minutes after closing time, which was useful because it definitely would have been a SAR call-out otherwise, and they had no issue with nobody having tickets.

Sorry for yet another comment. I read through this, but... @madpom: "So what do you actually pay for at Ruapehu. The ski lifts? So can you, in theory, could you walk up and ski for free?" Yes, I believe so. You're paying the for use of the lifts, and whatever other facilities they have there like cafes and gear hire and whatever. The land itself is a National Park and it's open access with skis or without.

Most of the bigger ski feilds have gone to electronic systems for some (season/life) or all users. Some feilds have people checking passes on selected chairlifts others are more automated and you need a pass to get through a 'gate' to get to the chairlift. Electronic passes are usually carried in pockets so there is no quick visual check as to whether you have a pass or not and all routine checking is as you get on a chairlift. As long as you are not 'naughty' ski patrol pay no attention to you. I have been up Ruapehu walking many times in winter and have never had any issues with using the cafe facilities and I am sure they would much prefer people to use the toilets provided too. Whakapapa is really good on letting you use the lifts for a ride down, Turoa isn't. Have also snow caved and iglooed on Ruapehu, sometimes within the bounds of the ski feild - just have to be careful that you are not somewhere where a snowgroomer might run over you in the night or where they might bomb and avalanche onto you. Pays to talk to ski patrol if you are planning on overnighting in the area.

Yes I wasn't meaning to suggest that it'd be normal to need a pass to use a cafe or toilets. Only that it'd be a legal possibility for a concession to allow an operator to require you to pay them for use of their facility... if they wanted to. DOC might have as easily stated on a concession that the holder has to make toilets and a cafe available for the public at no charge, as a trade-off for the profit they're allowed to make in other places, but legally it's possible for private operators to be given permission by DOC to charge for use of facilities which they provide on public land, and that's sort of how we have commercial ski operators making money on public land to begin with. (Unlike someone's suggestion in that linked boarderzone thread, it's not automatically legal to jump on a lift because it happens to be on public land.) :) But the land itself, if it's public land, is usually going to be open access for all. Occasionally there are provisions and bylaws and things where an operator might be able to have an area closed off to the public if they can justify it within reason.... like maybe they don't want people getting too close to the thermonuclear reactor which powers their coffee machine. Anyway, I don't have the type of flashy fashion sense needed for skiing or snowboarding, so I don't hang around commercial skifields enough to know what actually goes on. But I wouldn't be too surprised if the occasional official asserts more authority than they have under law. Even DOC rangers sometimes assert more authority than they have. @pmcke's had many gripes about this.