Queenstown, New Zealand – Unseasonably warm weather continues to frustrate New Zealand ski resort operators who have been unable to start the country’s ski and snowboard season on schedule.
The Remarkables, in the Southern Lakes resort community of Queenstown, is the latest resort to postpone its season debut, originally scheduled for this Saturday. Officials at Coronet Peak, which like The Remarkables is also owned by NZski.com, made the same decision earlier this month regarding their scheduled June 4 opening, which now remains on hold indefinitely. Staffers at another NZski.com stablemate, Mt. Hutt near Methven, made the same decision last week, as did the operators of Snow Park NZ near Lake Wanaka.
New Zealand slopes today remain devoid of any appreciable natural snowfall and the mildest May in recent years, which has continued into June, has hampered pre-opening snowmaking operations.
“As with Coronet Peak before us, it’s massively disappointing and hugely frustrating to be in the position where we can’t get the season underway this Saturday, but we will open on the very first day we possibly can,” said The Remarkables ski area manager Ross Lawrence. “Our mountain staff are all on board and our snowmaking team is on 24-hour standby ready to make snow as conditions allow. We know winter’s going to arrive when it’s ready, so we just look to see what each daybreak brings.”
Elsewhere on New Zealand’s South Island, Ohau is making snow and is still planning on a June 25 season start. Treble Cone and Coronet Peak staffers have their fingers crossed for next weekend, while Snow Park NZ officials are still waiting to see if they can make enough snow to open this weekend. Forecasts show only a chance of light snow and rain showers arriving in the region on Saturday and continuing into Sunday, with freezing levels rising throughout the storm to as high as 2,300 meters elevation before dropping back to 800-1,000 meters on Sunday.
Meanwhile the ski season is underway across the Tasman Sea in Australia, where a number of resorts are now open. The Southern Hemisphere ski and ride season began June 9 in the tiny African nation of Lesotho at Afri-Ski, followed the next day by Perisher in Australia. While volcanic ash has fallen on some South American resorts from the eruption of Chile’s Puyehue-Cordon Caulle volcanic complex on June 5th, snow has since begun falling from the skies and the ski season is still scheduled to get underway this Friday at Argentina’s Cerro Catedral Alta Patagonia.