Lees ready for another snow season

Cardrona ski industry entrepreneurs John and Mary Lee announced last year they were ready to retire, but it has not happened yet.

However, with the announcement last Friday of an agreement to sell the Snow Farm, they may be one step closer.

This month marked the start of the couple's 31st season on the snow and they were definitely ready for it, they said on Friday night.

"I'm only 74," was Mr Lee's enthusiastic response.

And the Snow Farm confirmed by email it was fully open for business after three weeks of weekend-only skiing.

It is the first of Wanaka's four skifields to open this season.

It was "touch and go" last year whether the Lees wanted to continue, given the recession and financial consequences of legal battles relating to land-use issues.

Mrs Lee, who just a year earlier was biking and running around on the Pisa Range like a mountain goat, was also in a lot of pain from osteo-arthritis.

But the launch of the 2009 Winter Games New Zealand was imminent and she could not let the Nordic sports opportunity slip for the New Zealand athletes.

She limped her way through the games before getting her much-needed double hip replacement surgery after the winter.

Mrs Lee is healthy now, compared with last season when her friends were worrying - out loud - how she would keep up.

She confesses she is not going to the gym as often as she used to and still has not regained all her famous energy.

That did not stop her completing January's Challenge Wanaka "swim the course" 3.8km social event with little training.

And she is not giving up cross-country skiing and biathlon, both of which she helped found in New Zealand.

Mrs Lee fully intends to continue her involvement with the sports this winter, while members of the Pisa Alpine Charitable Trust shadow her to learn how the business runs.

The amount the trust must raise is commercially confidential at this stage.

The land had an agreed valuation of $2.035 million last year.

Once the deal settles, Mrs Lee will hand over the mantle to the trust completely.

Then she is looking forward to spending more time with family, friends and her grandchildren.

But the trust - of which she is a member - will still get her 100% support.