Time to start up for this season (even though we've already been going a couple of weeks).

Slow Snow Start

Hutt and Concrete Peak opened on the first weekend of June (Queen's Birthday here). Prior to that they'd had a good run of very cold weather with a couple of snowfalls coming through.

It has remained pretty cold until the last few days where the weather has gone NW and warmed. As a result its not been looking too flash. Both hills are operating minimum trails ie Hutt has Broadway and Coronet has the M1 and Big Easy - not exactly challenging for most of the world...anyway it's open for the moment. There's some weather forecast tonight and tomorrow that might drop some snow so here's hoping.

Accommodation Crisis?

Other news is there's been a few reports of major accommodation crisi (crisisies, crisis - plural - ah who knows...) anyway, problems in QT and Wanaka especially. Mainly due to the amount of construction work going on in both those places - contractors need places to stay and earn more money then ski workers.

Bit of a problem that one - Methven seems to tbe in the same boat although to a lesser degree. Every year it seems to get harder to get good accommodation.

The NZ Peso is picking up against the US$ and Pound so your money won't go as far as it previously did but it will still go a hell of a long way!

More resorts opening

Other fields are eyeing opening in the next two weeks, North Island is looking quite nice just now with pretty regular falls and getting up to 1m base.

So pray for some more snow - for those here ..Enjoy and for those coming, um, Enjoy!

[Report from Colin Slater]

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