Coronet Peak was New Zealand's first commercial ski field and is now celebrating a milestone - its 70th birthday.
The ski field was a trail blazer carving out a new industry and revolutionising Queenstown tourism.
Eighty-nine-year-old Les Brough remembers when the ski field first opened in 1947.
"You went over gullys, and you were hanging in the air, you're off the ground, and you had to hold onto that crack knucker or you'd fall down around 20 feet."
It attracted local tourists in the slow winter months with up to 200 skiers on a busy day.
Compared to today's luxuries at Coronet with the eight chair lifts it was the wild west.
"Skiing was a far more adventurous sport than it is now - back then, you would sew up your own woollen pants and jackets," Area Manager Nigel Kerr says.
Coronet Peak continued to lead the way putting in its first chairlift in 1962.
And the first to launch night skiing in the early 80s and installed snowmakers over 25 years ago.
To Mr Brough who stopped skiing in 2015 because of bad knees, the ski field revolutionised Queenstown into the tourist town it is today.
"The whole town closed down in the winter and if it wasn't for the skifield, they wouldn't have got the people."
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