Mt Hutt in Canterbury, kicked off the 2018 winter season with all lifts running on opening day for the first time in more than 20 years.
A timely 30cm of new snow arrived on Tuesday night and a further 5cm of snow on Wednesday blanketed the award-winning ski field. At 6am this morning, the conditions were clear and calm with crystal clear skies.
Mt Hutt Ski Area Manager James McKenzie reported a mix of over 1500 regular guests and first-timers throughout the morning.
“With the best opening snow base in years and a sunny day with light breezes, we couldn’t have hoped for a better start to the 2018 winter season,” says James.
As all the lifts are running, which means the “First on Triple” Tees – new for 2018 – will become a much-coveted collector’s item.
“The Triple chairlift usually opens at the end of June or early July due to insufficient early season snow coverage on the lower mountain,” explains James.
“But thanks to a massive upgrade to our snowmaking system over the summer, we have been able to make snow on “International” in the lead up to opening day.”
James says that Mt Hutt has effectively doubled snowmaking capacity for 2018.
“We can now operate snow guns on the upper and lower sections of the mountain simultaneously. In the past we had to focus snowmaking on specific areas of the upper mountain due to pumping limitations.”
Snowmaking is key to the mountain, and these investments have increased capacity and snow management capability to improve coverage in season.”
Thanks to a record-breaking, pre-season snowmaking campaign and the recent southerly weather fronts, the snow base on groomed trails stands at an impressive 35-70cm.
“We are looking at the best opening snow base in nearly 10 years and it is awesome to see the Triple chair lift turning on day one along with the Summit Six and Quad chairs” says James.
The popular Sky High Café has been renovated to speed up food and coffee service and create more space. This includes an entire new food servery for hotter, faster bigger, better meals and with a more logical layout, a new seating area for groups, and an extended Sixteen10 coffee bar doubling coffee output and accommodating more seating.
In terms of parking, a new 44-seater 4WD bus will make car park shuttling more efficient, and toilet facilities will be provided at the lower carparks.
Check out the snow falling in Aussie resorts today:
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