Methven, New Zealand – After an extraordinarily warm May and June, Mt. Hutt ski area will open on a limited basis beginning Monday, the first resort in New Zealand to do so this year.

Only the Canterbury ski field’s Magic Carpet and Quad Chair, accessing half of the main Broadway trail, will be open for business. The mountain’s other trails do not yet have sufficient snow coverage to open, but snowmaking will be continuing to try and open more of the area as soon as possible.

Mt. Hutt Ski Area Manager David Wilson, however, said it was “a huge relief” to be getting underway for the 2011 winter season after weather forced the resort to delay its scheduled June 11 start. Monday marks the latest opening for the ski area in at least a decade.

“While we’ll have limited services operating in the base building, we will have the ski school, full rental services and the cafe open,” Wilson explained. “We don’t yet have sufficient snow to open other trails, and there’ll be no off-piste skiing, but the fact that we can open with what we have is due to our ability to make snow consistently since last Friday.”

Other ski areas across New Zealand have yet to open but are making snow where possible now that colder weather returned to the region on Friday. The Queenstown Winter Festival took place over the weekend for the first time in recent memory without any open slopes.

“We’re looking for continued cold weather this week to continue snowmaking and hopefully, fingers crossed, some natural snowfall,” Wilson said, indicating that the main slopes will require another 30-40cm of snow to open. “The snowmaking team have done an awesome job and have worked around the clock since last Friday to get where we are today. We just can’t wait to get underway with winter and welcome visitors and locals to our slopes.”

On the North Island, snow began to fall on Mt. Ruapehu just in time for the weekend’s Mardi Gras festivities in Ohakune. Mt. Ruapehu Alpine Lifts hopes to get Turoa ski area open in the next couple of days, and Whakapapa’s debut is now rescheduled for July 2.