New Zealand season passes (questions too)

Don1

I start work on Coronet Peak as a liftie tomorrow! See you guys here whenever you get here!

robinph

Good stuff.

I'll be in Queenstown from about the 4th/ 5th and expecting to jump the queue.

Don1

hehe, dunno about that now, there has been trouble with staff skipping the queues already this year! I'll see what I can do, although I think I'm more than likely gonna be on Magic Carpets most of the time, but maybe the t-bar.
See you then!

robinph

Guess I'll have to steal a ski school uniform from someone to get away with the queue jumping then.

How is the road up to Corornet, and the Remarkables if you've been up there much, or do you just get the bus up every day?

Don1

hehe, I'd love a blue jacket!
Road to Coronet is fine, chains for 2WD stuff if it's icy, but mostly it's okay.
Remarks is a dirt road and supposedly tricky. Not been there yet!
I hitch to Coronet all the time. Handy out.

robinph

So would the road to Coronet be doable in a hiace then do you think, or is it just more sensible to get a bus regardless?

Don1

Yup, unless it snowed heavily. You can park at the bottom and hitch up no problem. To hell with paying!

robinph

Done my first couple of ski fields in New Zealand now.

Had a two great clear days for skiing on bothe Whakapapa and Turoa. Excellent skiing to be had on both and although they claimed to be busy by NZ standards I thought the pistes were actually relatively empty compared to how busy you'd find place in Europe. They have had so much snow though that they lost the stick that they use for measuring the snow depth as it only went up as far as 3.5m, they think they currently have 4.7m on Turoa and could be open until christmas.

Mount "Doom" a.k.a Ngauruhoe:


Some random boarder showing off:


Off to get the ferry to the south island now to find me some more skiing.

Don1

Holy crap! Must stop off up there after the season ends down here, which if the current weather holds up won't be too far away. Coronet is now ice in the morning and slush in the evening and melting fast.
Remarks is better and parks are holding up okay there, although the launches and some of the landings get a bit chewed up. Some enormous jumps with perfectly groomed landings there too.

robinph

Well the weather was a bit too rubish when I got to the glaciers today for any heli-hiking type activites so I've just come straight down to Wanaka already now. I't raining a bit in the town at the moment but I'm not sure in what direction Treble Cone is or any of the other areas so will have to check out what the snow is like on them tomorrow now.

I should be in Queenstown in a couple of days, unless the weather is really good tomorrow and I can do the skydiving thing instead here.

paulharte

Don1 wrote: »

Remarks is better and parks are holding up okay there,...

You said it man, I don't know why anyone besides ski racers go to "concrete peak"... Remarks = better parks, better snow, better off piste (homeward bound on a good day is almost as good as anything in the northern hemi)