31 August 2012
It’s not every day you see firefighters in their full gear snowboarding down a mountain while attached to a fire hose, but that’s just what early bird Coronet Peak visitors were treated to last month.
Mind you, it was all for a good cause: the annual Chill Factor Challenge. The annual event, in its second year, raises money for Queenstown’s Bruce Grant Youth Trust, a charity that helps youth undertake sporting, arts or cultural activities.
Auckland Airport firefighter Tony Scott organised the challenge, and just for good measure added a second event, climbing a 150m hill while still in full firefighting gear.
“It doesn’t sound very high but that event finished me,” Tony says. “Both events were out of this world.”
The teams – from Queenstown, Wanaka and Auckland – raised $8500 with this year’s event, almost $7100 of which came from Auckland Airport’s firefighting team who had been collecting in the terminals. Tony says that amount constitutes a third of what the Trust usually gives out in a year.
“It was really great because this year we got to meet the parents of some of the children who have received funding from the Trust. So we got to see it in action, so to speak.”
For the record, the Queenstown team defended their Chill Factor title, and Wanaka took first, second and third in the K2 climb.