Coronet Peak Queenstown New Zealand to open

Coronet Peak Queenstown New Zealand to is to open on man made snow on Thursday.

Thursday means Coronet Peak will be open in June and will be the 2nd ski field to open with snow on the ground in New Zealand. Many visitors who are here in Queenstown leave on Sat which is the major change over day so this would give the current lot snow seekers 2 days of skiing or snow boarding before they leave town. Then the next bunch of keen skiers and snow boarders arrives given the ash does not disrupt the situation.

This has certainly been a testing time for many in Queenstown, visitors, ski area workers, retailers, petrol stations and just about everybody has been affected by the lack of snow. The snow making system at Coronet Peak has certainly been tested as this would be the first year with the new and fully automated system that there has been no natural snow to work with and build on. It’s all man made snow. A soon as it got cold enough bingo!

I will look forward to seeing you up there at Coronet Peak and lets hope the cold temps
continue and fingers crossed for a real snow storm too!

Natural snowfall hits Queenstown ski areas

After a month of fine weather the weather patterns have changed and the snow has arrived with Coronet Peak getting 12cms overnight and 10cm at the Remarkables. It has continued to snow in the ski areas this morning and they have picked up another 10 or so.

Coronet Peak has had amazing skiing even with the lack of snow over the last month due to the fantastic snow making system with great chalky snow to ski on. Perfect for the NZ schools holidays. Now they have finished it was the perfect time to get some natural snow. It looks like we should get some more later this week on Thursday with another front coming in. My bet is we will now see quite regular snow falls throughout the end of July and August. For those of you heading to Queenstown for some skiing or snowboarding action the next month should be awesome.

The heli skiing is going to be excellent through August so make sure you book with Southern Lakes Heli Ski for your big day out in the mountains.

Ski Tip - approx 25% of your overall body mass is in your arms and hands, make sure you carry them in front of you. You should be able to see your hands at all times while looking straight ahead. If you can't see you hands they are not in the right position and you will tend to have your weight move to far back.

Driving Tip - Make sure you carry chains in your vehicle and know how to put them on. Drive to the conditions!

Another Great Day on Coronet Peak, New Zealand

Well lst night saw some precip come in just on dark for an hour or so and it wasn't quite cold enough to snow so the R word come in to play. It cleared quite quickly and started to set everything up again. This moring the Coronet Peak was pretty hard and fast but the groomers had done a great job and the on piste skiing was actually pretty bloody good. Off piste remained fairly bomb proof and only the foolhard seemed to venture off piste, it was certainly a day to stay on the groomers! As the day wore on the groomed runs softened nicely and skied well.

The rain the went into the snow pack on Coronet Peak hasn't really done any damage, testiment to the amount of snow we have got and also the resilence of the man made snow that was laid on top of the natural snow. As the rain has permeatted thru the pack and the got cold and frozen it wil have bonded everything up quite well and I certainly can't see it going anywhere in a hurry.

It look like we will have some colder snow weather arriving on Sunday so that will put the Peak back in tip top condition if it transpires. Watch out on the roads around the Queenstown area - plenty of little icy spots that wil catch out the motorist driving a bit qucik for the conditions.

All in all the peak is skiing great for early season and there are plenty of happy people around.

Check out my quick vid from today:

The quiet September

It's not quite a ghost town but its pretty damn quiet on the snow at Coronet Peak which is great for us locals to enjoy some good spring skiing conditions. In fact they blew some machine snow last night again and the on piste snow is awesome and off piste remaining firm with the cold temperatures. Normally September is bloody busy and especially so when the snow is in as good a nick as it ever has been at this time of year thanks to the vastly improved snow making system.

It does beg the question did SAR (NZSKI) get it wrong this year by not paying commissions and losing lots (The Remarkables are about 30% down on numbers apparently) of skier and snowboarders to Cardrona in particular or is it just the flow on effect of the tighter economic conditions at present combined with Australia having a very good snow season?

My bet is its about 50/50 but the end result remains the same - numbers are down on the NZSKI.com snow areas in the Whakatipu basin. It's a good time to go skiing!

Official Opening Day at Cornet Peak

Coronet Peak put on a good show today for all with a 1/2 price deal on almost everything - a lot of people took full advantage of course. It was also the the official opening of the new facilities with Helen Clarke amongst the guests for the ceremony. The new base facilities handled the big crowds easily and made it appear that it wasn't actually busy at all - the cars were parked on the side of the road a long, long way down the hill below the car parks!

The skiing/riding is surprisingly good with the man made product being pumped out at full noise. With all the main trails open the crowd thinned out very well over the mountain. The forecast front arrived about midday and has produced a small amount of natural snow over the course of the afternoon but nothing major - maybe it will keep snowing tonite with some luck. The on piste snow quality is pretty good with the technology in the new guns pumping out wet gorilla snot but nice light dry snow. 10 more cms and Coronet Peaks' off piste will open up - keep your fingers crossed! It is rumored that the Remarkables will open on Monday 30th June and I am sure there will be a lot of snow borders checking out the stash. I hope that the Remarkables side of the Whakatipu Basin may have received a bit more snow today than Coronet Peak.

Well my new skis - WICKED. The Rossignol Z10's are great - straight out of the factory and on snow and they ripped. The ski has plenty of grunt when required but if you back off they still ski well. I managed to get a little in the back seat a couple of times and watch out the are fairly ferocious back there --- it took a bit of recovering to stop going down in a screaming heap. They ski a GS and Medium radius tun very well but I found a little slow edge to edge for cranking short radius turns which is to be expected considering the width under the foot. I will be interested to see when I get the new arms attached how the go in a short Radius turn. Given that it was all on piste skiing today they performed as good as they are designed and look. I have a feeling from todays performance that they will rip off piste too. Anybody who is a top end (NZ level 6) skier will like these skis a lot. If this is you and you are in the market for a new ride check them out you will enjoy them! So where to from here with the Z10's - I will ski then one more day with the factory tune and then I will get them tuned to my liking and see what happens (I imagine they will only ski better) and of course get them in some off piste terrain, try the different arms and keep testing. I will keep you posted on what I learn about the awesome Z10.

I will take my flip vid and shoot some footage to load up 2moro if possible.

10 more fresh

10 cms of fresh fell yesterday afternoon so Coronet Peak is starting to look really good again. We should probably get some more natural on Friday (2moro)and the snow making is continuing. Compare todays photo with yesterdays and you will see a difference! I am sure there have been plenty of people having a great time already up there while I sit here writing my blog and can see the Peak out the window - ahh bugger!

My Rossignol Z10's (170cms)arrived and they do look like a wicked ski (see photo). They have an intergrated ski/binding system that is incredibly easy to set to the the boot size required and the binding din has plenty of room to move with minimum being 3.5 and maximum being 12 so this range caters to most skiers. The ski binding has a changable arm setting that comes out along the ski towards both the tip and the tail of each ski - by putting different lengths/stiffness levels on allows you to change the radius the ski will do. The tip measures 127, waist 75, and tail 108 so it has plenty of side cut to ski hard piste yet keeping plenty of underfoot to ride well off piste.

The Z10's will feel the snow under my feet for the first time on Saturday - I am going with the factory tune as it apparently is very good (looks good too) and we will start to put them to the test. I am pretty excited to ski them - if they ski as well as they have been constructed and look I imagine I will be a pretty happy fella.

If you are going to be at Coronet Peak and need to get up to speed and really start enjoying your time on snow come have a lesson with me - ask for me by name at the Coronet Peak Snowsports School. If you want to try some Rossignol Z10's check out the R&R Sports ski and snowboard demo center which will be on Coronet Peak on Wednesdays and Sundays and they have a great range of Rossignol gear to try out. Alternatively pop into the Rand R Sports shop on Shotover Street in Queenstown and have a chat to them - trust me they will look after you very well.

CU up the peak soon!

Bring on the snow!

Coronet peak opened to day with 15cms of fresh with 48 hrs of man made and the good news is the next front has just hit and is snowing again! We should pick up another good amount today and tonight and there is some more forecast to come in on Friday. I would suggest that by the weekend (the weather looks good for Sunday) that most of the terrain will be open and it will be ON at the Peak. Bring on the snow!

Still Waiting!

Well it seems as though the snow in May never does stay.

Unfortunately 7th June opening for CP came and went but they didn't get open due to a nasty windstorm. They did manage to get open on the Sun 8th and thousands flocked to see the new base area structure and enjoy what snow hadn't been ripped away by the howling winds - most seemed to have a great time even while lining up at the lift with one of the new snow making cannons letting loose at the people waiting to ride. Temperatures were not particularly conducive for making snow for the rest of the week so the cannons didn't see much action. Then the dreaded R word happened- it started raining on Wednesday night, very warm rain and CP was awash. Thursday dawned clear and unseasonally warm and with the damage to what had been a pretty good base apparent for all to see. CP made the right and probably only decision to stay closed for the day. More warm rain fell on Thursday and Friday nights (both days were clear but warm)and the snow continued to wash away. CP is still closed now for (5 consecutive days in a row). With the freezing temperature at 3000m today it is not likley they will get open for tomorrow (Tuesday) either. It must be frustrating having a 30+ million dollar development sitting there ---- closed. I have seen it far worse still at this same time of year. The good news is the freezing level does look like it should drop later on Tuesday so I am sure that CP are keen to show off what is meant to be the most technologically advanced and largest snow making system in the world. When it does get a chance to swing into action I am sure that we will see CP do it's chameleon impression and be looking fantastic in the blink of an eye.

With global warming, fuel prices, power prices, food prices (in fact you name it)all having a major impact on the world we live in, I want to thank the owners for having the outright balls to spend that kind of money on a re-development in a time of such uncertainty. I am sure that I will see the benefits of it in Queenstown for a long time to come - if it gets cold!