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Removing debris and replacing a skifield café and groomer shed destroyed by an arsonist high up Mt Ruapehu is a long and costly project that is testing men and machines. BY GAVIN RILEY
Replacing the café and snow-groomer workshop and storage area destroyed by an arsonist on Mt Ruapehu’s Whakapapa skifield in February last year is costing $12 million – not to mention the time-consuming inconvenience and labour involved in removing debris and bringing in building materials at such an altitude. Skifield operator Ruapehu Alpine Lifts awarded the rebuilding contract to Stanley Construction of Matatmata, and assigned responsibility to TPP Contracting for carrying out all the removal and importing work. Both companies have worked on Ruapehu construction projects for many years. While Stanley busied itself building a temporary café in time for the ski season, TPP Contracting started its clean-up work a week after the fire, including sweeping up all the ash by hand and bagging it. “We had 12 staff up there and it took about two months to clean up,” says Russell Le Quesne (pronounced Le Kane), owner/manager of TPP Contracting, which is based at Piriaka, nearly 60 kilometres from Mt Ruapehu and 12 kilometres south of Taumarunui.
TPP Contracting transported all the scrap steel, including the groomers and digger, to Wellington. The company took the rest of the contaminated material, including spilled fuel and oil, to the Bonny Glen waste site at Marton. “The clean-up was a massive task,” says Russell, who is grateful he was released temporarily from Department of Conservation work on Ruapehu to take part in the debris-clearing and rebuilding (“DoC could see the benefits of it”). TPP has two diggers on the mountain, a Hitachi Zaxis ZX240 and a ZX160, plus a 10-tonne-capacity dump truck from Hireways in Palmerston North that was transported up the slope by a snow groomer and trailer in October and must wait for snow in June or July before being removed the same way in compliance with DoC rules to protect the mountain. Because a digger was needed on the mountain immediately after the fire in February last year when there was no snow on the ground, Russell did something not attempted before. Working a few hours at a time, he painstakingly drove the ZX160 up over a carpet or raft of truck tyres, continually using a pick mounted on the excavator to lift the tyre at the rear and place it at the front to keep the raft moving forward and ensure the digger did not touch the ground.
The design of the buildings called for Stanley Construction to precast a lot of the concrete floor and components. Using the snow groomer and trailer, TPP Contracting had to take 200 concrete components up the mountain during the winter, with a digger at either end to load and unload. “We had some shocking weather when we were trying to do that. Consequently, we were involved in doing night shifts, with lights on the machines,” Russell says. TPP staff have crushed all the concrete from the foundations of the old buildings, using a nibbler on one of the diggers and removing the steel, and this crushed material is being used as part of the fill required for the foundations of the new structures. More fill was being taken up the mountain in February and some 120-130 cubic metres of readymix concrete from Byford at Taupo was expected to be flown in, using a “squirrel” helicopter at four trips to the metre. The speed and efficiency of TPP’s work has been greatly enhanced by its purchase from the United States of a TEI drill, the first of its type in New Zealand.
“The drill is designed for tie-backs and retaining walls and it’s proving pretty good for the job. It’s saving us lots of time – and time is probably more significant up there than money. Time is crucial.” He says the drill will be invaluable for future work on the mountain. “A lot of projects we considered too difficult to do by hand we can now deal with.” Stanley Construction currently has two teams on the mountain sharing a seven-day working week. When the teams cross over for two days there are 15 or 16 Stanley staff on site. During the rest of the week there are six or seven. TPP Contracting at present has five staff on site. With subcontractors the workforce is expected to peak at 25 to 30. The café is scheduled to open in July in time for the ski season and Russell says the weather will dictate when TPP’s work is finished. This summer has been fairly wet with only a couple of good weeks, but only about a week’s work has been lost. “It’s what we call typical project weather on the mountain. Every time you do a big project up there you tend not to get favourable weather for earthworks. We’ve had a lot of misty, rainy days. In among the rock there’s an ash content and when it gets really wet that turns to pea soup, and with the rain it just washes off everywhere. It just becomes muddy, slushy.
Russell says the present project is easier than some because his staff have been staying in Ruapehu Alpine Lifts ski accommodation at 1050 metres and have been able to chairlift to the construction site. “But you can’t run the chairlift if it’s windy – though if you can’t run the chairlift you probably shouldn’t be at work anyway,” he says. The strongest wind gust recorded on Ruapehu is nearly 260kph and it’s not uncommon to experience winds of 100kph, even in summer. Russell is hoping that after the present contract is completed, TPP will be involved in Ruapehu Alpine Lifts’ plans to construct a new chairlift on Whakapapa skifield. But he is now 44 and that raises the question of how much longer he can work on such rugged terrain and at such an altitude. He says that at 50 he should definitely be starting to step back from the front line of digger operating and carrying out blasting, and that already he is doing more supervisory work and spending more time at meetings. However, Russell (who took over TPP from his father Trevor) isn’t overly concerned about who will succeed him. He says his 11-year-old daughter Laura is already spending every holiday and weekend up the mountain helping, “so perhaps there is the next general manager of TPP”.
“The cold’s a bit of a problem up there, but as long as you’re dressed for it you’re okay,” Russell says. “Even on the finest days you never go up there without all your wet-weather gear and plenty of warm clothes, because the weather can change before it’s time to come down – and it can change very quickly.” Ruapehu work days start at 7am and because of the need to make hay while the sun shines, days off are irregular. But Russell has no complaints. “It can be challenging working up there, but I love it because of the challenge factor. There’s nothing simple about what you do,” he says.
Contractor Vol.34 No.3 April 2010 |
When a building burns down, the result is a costly mess. When the same thing happens more than 2000 metres (6600ft) up a mountain, the result is a multi-million-dollar catastrophe.
“About 400 tonnes of debris had to be helicoptered off from the café and groomer-shed sites. Three burned-out groomer machines and a digger had to be cut into flyable loads of 800-850kg.”
The new café, with a basement beneath, has a steel framework with wooden inserts and floor-to-ceiling windows consisting of extremely tough and heavy glass. The Caterpillar groomer shed consists of a concrete floor and wooden walls.
“It’s mounted on the excavator boom and we can drill a three-metre-deep, 45mm hole in two and half minutes for blasting and pinning for the foundations,” Russell says.
“You’ve got to know when to stop, to give it away before it turns pear-shaped on you – particularly when you’ve got a big crew up there and you have to walk down.”
The trouble with working on Ruapehu, as with all mountains, is the weather can be unpredictable. It can be 25 degrees in February, with the lava rock creating an oven-like effect, but it can also snow. Even before March arrived, there was frost on the ground most mornings, indicating the temperature had dropped to minus five overnight.