In a week when the best of the world's skiers and snowboarders are bringing a blizzard of ''big air'' spectacles to southern skifields during the Winter Games, Wanaka bureau chief Mark Price slipped off quietly for what is known in some quarters as a ''soft snow'' experience.
If you can walk you can snowshoe.
You do not need an instructor. You do not need a ski lift. You do not even need a Daniel Boone hat and a backpack of beaver skins.
You do need about the same measure of energy as you do for a walk in the mountains but, in contrast to a walk, you avoid the mud, the loose rock, the rabbit droppings, and wild Spaniard. There is just snow - some of it going up and some of it going down.
Snowshoeing is what some in the tourism industry call a ''soft snow'' experience that will, they expect, attract foreign tourists hesitant to plunge straight into downhill skiing or snowboarding.
Snow Farm business manager Rachel Shields prefers not to use the term ''soft snow'' because it might give the impression it is a lesser activity to ''hard out'' snowboarding and skiing.
''You don't want people to feel they are not 'hard out','' she says.
She prefers ''snow fun'', which can consist of tubing, or sledding, or snow shoeing, or building a snow cave or even throwing snowballs.
''I think people want something different from the skiing experience; to get away from the chairlifts and the crowds.
''It's not as intimidating so they can go for a walk on snowshoes or have a sled down the hill and get that first snow experience. We're capturing a lot of people that way.''
Pat and Narrell Ridoux, of Cairns, Australia, did not care whether snowshoeing was described as ''soft'' or ''fun''.
A short circuit or two in close proximity to a hot drink at the the Snow Farm base building was entertainment enough for a first encounter with snow.
''Easy as,'' was Mr Ridoux's verdict.
''We climbed the mountain and no problems.''
Mrs Ridoux said, as the couple shuffled off towards the cafe, she chose snowshoeing because ''I was too chicken to do the ski''.
Normally, Auckland pre schooler Violet Conyngham (3) can expect a walk in the park or a visit to an indoor playground on a winter weekend.
With no previous snow experience, except for a movie called Frozen, Violet was ''absolutely loving it'', her mother Emma Conyngham said, as she set her daughter off, again, down a short, gentle slope in a rubber tube.
''For them [her two children], it's the whole movie come to life.''
She expected her children to be ''utterly exhausted'' at the end of the day, promising a very quiet trip back to their accommodation.
Sharing the slope was Natalie Whyte (3), riding the flying saucer, as her mother Vivian Mohr prepared her for her first experience on skis.
''It just gives her a sense of sliding,'' Ms Mohr said.
And, she said, there were always snow caves and snow people to create when boredom set in, or when parental pulling power began to wane.
Some of those without a parent to drag them uphill persuaded the family pooch to try a little ''bikejoring'', run for the first time at the sled dog festival last weekend, and seen as an introduction to sled dog racing.
It requires a good keen dog to tow a cyclist on a bike with very fat snow tyres.
Palmerston North enthusiast Eric Altermann said, in addition to a dog and a bike, all that was needed was a bungy cord and a harness.
''You have the dog pulling you, and you are trying frantically to hang on,'' he explained as his wife Gabby shot past behind a good keen dog called Kaya.
And, for those looking for an even more complex way of having a soft snow experience, there is kite skiing or boarding.
Yekaterina Zazubina, of New South Wales, said she was relying on her kite surfing expertise to get a free ride up the slopes, but was finding it a little ''scary'' getting started.
Others were relying on their snowboarding expertise, intent on adding kite flying to their resume, and said the trick was not to stop once you got going.
But on a day with just a gentle breeze available, it seemed like the kite skiers could have done with a ski lift, a dog, or a maybe a parent.
