Canterbury ski field celebrates its biggest turnout in a decade

It’s all smiles at Canterbury’s Mt Hutt after a bumper Matariki. In fact, July 10th has been coined the ski field's biggest day in ten years. 

General manager James McKenzie told rova it’s hard to put a number on it, but at least one car was arriving on the mountain every five seconds. The carparks were full to a point where guests had to be turned away. 

He chalked it up to the school holidays, a bluebird sky, and a metre of snowfall. 

“The perfect snow conditions got everybody who was interested in skiing pretty fizzing, and up onto the mountain. The other ski fields in Canterbury also weren't open on Friday, so we were sort of the only place to go…”

It’s a result that has generated optimism for the months ahead. 

“This definitely sends signals into the market and people who are interested to come skiing - not just locally within Canterbury, but further afield and as far away as Australia and other international places,” said McKenzie.

The business needs about a metre of snow on its trails to make it through into spring and October. 

“We've reached that level now and there's still quite a bit of winter to go,” he continued. 

“That doesn't happen every year, so it's great to be in that position right now. We did have a slow start to the season, of course, having to delay our opening by two weeks.” 

However, Friday wasn’t without its hiccups. McKenzie explained plenty of holidayers in two-wheel-drives tried the journey without snow chains, avoiding hire facilities at the start of the access road.

“Those vehicles, of which there were around half a dozen or so, got into trouble at various locations on the access road, which meant other guests that were trying to get up were impeded, and created quite substantial delays.”

Like any traffic jam, it was a slippery slope. 

“Our shuttle buses were also caught up in those blockages, which meant that we weren't able to get guests shuttled from the lower car parks as efficiently as we would normally do.”

“We do have a road patrol team that are out there recovering vehicles. They just got overwhelmed with so many people getting into trouble in such a short space of time.”

The issue got addressed for the rest of the weekend via a timely snow report. 

“We indicated that there was a substantial fine for people that didn't adhere to the chain call… we think that sent a clear message out, and we really haven't had too much trouble on the road since”.

Mt Hutt has since confirmed the fine could reach $800 for drivers ignoring chain advice.

McKenzie said kinks in the process were regretful, but most of them have been ironed out. On Sunday the chairlift wait times sat at five-minutes, despite another large peak in visitor numbers - so now may be the time to get out there and shred. 

Photo credit: Mt Hutt Facebook page