Mountains open for winter 2024
It's not quite a winter wonderland yet but the Queenstown Lakes skifields have welcomed their first skiers and snowboarders for 2024.
Cardrona Alpine Resort and The Remarkables both opened on Saturday, 15 June, for snow hounds keen to make their first turns of the season.
RealNZ-run Cardrona, in the valley between Wānaka and Queenstown, managed to get the McDougall’s Chondola and the learner conveyors spinning. About 10cms of snow last week, supported by the artificial snow from the guns, was topped off by 5cm overnight before opening.
"The team have worked incredibly hard to get us open today, I’m incredibly proud of their mahi," Cardrona and Treble Cone GM, Laura Hedley, said on Saturday. "We’re stoked to see everyone up here skiing and snowboarding – bring on Winter 2024!"
Nixon Young, Jacob Yeasey, Cindy Chen, Summer Miles, Lauren Benzene, and David Brown claimed the first-on-the-chair honours for 2024 at Cardrona.
Meanwhile, Queenstown's NZSki-run The Remarkables skifield also kicked off the season, opening the Tahi, Rua and Shorty conveyors in the learners area with about 10cm of real snow, with more since then. Former Wakatipu High School principal Steve Hall, who's taken over as skifield area manager from departing Ross Lawrence, was on hand to pop the Champagne.
Both The Remarkables and Cardrona also opened their guest services, rentals and cafés, and will open more main ski runs as the weather and snowmaking permits.
NZSki-run Coronet Peak flirted with the idea of opening on Saturday, but skifield area manager Nigel Kerr said the snow cover wasn't quite enough. "We've been working really hard with the snow making, we just need a couple more centimetres to join it all up," Kerr says. He says fingers crossed the skifield will be able to open its main chairlift Coronet Express, as well as Meadows Express and the learners carpets later this week. RealNZ's Treble Cone, near Wanaka, is scheduled to open 29 June.
Cardrona and Treble Cone GM, Laura Hedley, is a guest on this week's Outlet Queenstown podcast talking about the huge snowmaking improvements at the two skifields, as well as work they've done over the summer, including more car parks at the end of a locals' favourite run, a new ski tuning robot which can tune skis in the time it takes to get a coffee, the capacity limits and dynamic pricing introduced last season, and the efforts to open 150 hectares of "wide, open, playful terrain" in Soho Basin for winter 2024.
- More photos in this week's Lakes Weekly Bulletin.
