Team have skiers' lives in their hands

Visibility was down to just a few metres as Chris Emmett and Karl Harrison guided a fallen skier on a sled down Mt Ruapehu toward the Plaza.
The mountain was crowded with the North Island's secondary school's ski racing championships on Monday as rain-filled clouds scudded across the mountain.
Mr Emmett is the Ruapehu Alpine Lifts (RAL) safety services manager for Turoa and first came to the mountain 20 years ago to work on the lifts.
"They were the heydays of 1992-94 and it was a fun place to work."
He has worked his way up through the ranks and is now customer safety - "the cocoon of safety in the ski area boundaries".
Avalanche control and terrain hazard management are all in a day's work for the safety team.
The 4am-4pm shift grooms cliff hazards and trails that have storm damage, then another shift comes on and tidies up.
Mr Emmett's "auditors" team comes in at the end of the day to look at the skiing areas, then again once the groomers have finished in the morning before the ski-fields are opened up.
"I start at 6.30am every morning to assess things on a daily basis to see how to make changes to the hazards."
Mr Emmett said safety was the first consideration and RAL had a pretty comprehensive safety programme.
"We manage it before it gets too serious."
He says the mountain is a special place for a lot of reasons and he really loves Ruapehu for its cultural and spiritual significance.
"I love the fact that people have so much attachment to this mountain."
He says the ski-field operates within a cocoon and the business was kept tight within the amenities.
Outside of that, Ruapehu reigns. "We are all just visitors here and we are respectful of that."
At the end of a skiing day the rescue team makes a sweep to make sure no one is left on the mountain. In the event of an emergency event, the team works with the Ruapehu Alpine Rescue organisation to supplement their efforts.
In the summer Mr Emmett takes groups to the crater lake - and all they left behind were their footprints, he said.
He also travels overseas and works at ski-fields in Utah, and British Colombia in Canada, more to get experience and bring back ideas but also to get an outside perspective.
Ruapehu is known as a maritime snow park influenced by the ocean.
There is more water content in the air, which can make good and bad skiing conditions.
"Our spring skiing is the best in the world."
They have had "10 really good skiing seasons" with the cyclical patterns of fluctuating levels of freezing because of the ocean's influences.
Mr Emmett took some time off to study for a degree in parks and management at Lincoln University and has just completed the top exam in avalanche safety management through Otago Polytech, based in Cromwell.
He said it was a nine-month process and they worked and assessed avalanche hazards near Wanaka.