Muted opening to ski season
Queenstown Lakes 2023 ski season is underway but it's very patchy up there.
Coronet Peak, The Remarkables and Cardrona Alpine Resort all officially opened over the weekend, with Treble Cone scheduled for this coming Saturday.
Last week, while temperatures in the Whakatipu Basin hit -7degC some mornings it was warmer up the mountains, above the inversion layer.
That made for difficult conditions for snowmaking and with little natural snow, only a few runs opened at each skifield.
At Coronet Peak, the snow guns managed to blast out enough to open Meadows Express and the magic carpets on Friday's opening day, with Coronet Express chondola running for sightseeing, while The Remarkables could only manage the learners' conveyors, with Shadow Basin for sightseeing.
Over at Cardrona, McDougall’s was spinning and the learners' slope was open, as well as a few rail features.
Coronet Peak ski area manager Nigel Kerr says: "It's been very limited but a surprisingly good turnout with what feels like about a thousand skiers and snowboarders a day. We wouldn't want more than that with the conditions as they are."
The skifields have a full complement of staff this year but with not everything open, they're not on full hours as yet.
"It's a good opportunity for them to put training into practice, and that's essential as we get busier."
It's a stark contrast to a year ago, when a massive dump of about two metres during opening week saw the skifields scrambling to clear enough snow to open. NZSki used the airport runway snowblower on the Coronet Peak access road, while snow on the deck at The Remarks was almost up to the top of the base building door frames.
This season's opening dry spell is expected to continue for the next week at least, so it remains to be seen whether the fields can remain open until that first big snowfall of the season, whenever that might be.
"There are fairly mild temperatures but we'll be snowmaking every opportunity we have, as we build towards the school holidays," Kerr adds.
Cardrona & Treble Cone GM Laura Hedley says despite "not quite as much snow as we had hoped for" it was great to be open.
"Our staff are pumped," she says, "we can't wait to see everyone up here this year."
