Alrighty, well things
here have done a bit of the usual Kiwi u-turn. It's
been snowing a fair bit and it's been absolutely Baltic.
Rumours of one Canterbury farmer actually putting
a jumper on are, as yet, unconfirmed, but its been
darn cold !!!
Sadly
most of this is second hand as I'm still in Wellington
but there you go. Today, Monday 5th is Queen's Birthday
which strangely we celebrate here, Coronet Peak
opened yesterday with basically the M1 *yawn* open,
nice man made ice and some fresh stuff up on top.
The
Olympic torch started its journey through NZ today,
it was skied down Concrete Peak by Annelise
Coberger (she got 2nd in the last Olympic slalom
and is a Kiwi) and then run through to the airport
and off to Christchurch, then Wellington and
then out to Ayres Rock as far as I know.
Anyway
a small diversion from the important news SNOWWWW.
OK so they've all basically got about 30-80cm of the
fresh stuff over the weekend and late last week. It's
forecast to still to be cold this week so the guns
will be running and most importantly it's been less
windy than normal so the snow's got chance to form
up into base.
So
scores on the doors are Hutt and Coronet
open, Whakapapa still looking somewhat green,
Cardrona franctically trying to get staff in ahead
of their projected June 22nd opening ditto Remarkables.
Most of the other Arthurs Pass areas like Porter
Heights etc. are also reassessing their opening
date which is good news. You never know we might get
up to somewhere like Mt Olympus in June excellent.
Shameless plug here for those of you hankering after
some fresh tracks, how about a week at Mt
Potts Cat Skiing at its best, amazing
hosts and for less than GBP300 for the week all in,
come on you know you want to !!!
Some
other interesting facts are that Whakapapa
and Turoa were selling season passes for $199
(GBP70) and managed to shift 30,000 of the beasts
between them. OK, so you can imagine what a good Saturday
will be like - 3 letters, where animals live. Anyway
no danger of that at the moment.
[Temple Basin Ski
Area, Mount Lyford ski area will open temporarily
this weekend, and permanently the weekend after. Mount
Cheeseman Ski Club opens at the end of this month.
Others are still reassessing although the Arthurs
Pass fields will still need another drop of snow to
be sure.]
