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Sunday, 6 July 2003

Around two and a half thousand skiers and snowboarders flocked to Mt Hutt today (Sunday July 6) in search of some perfect snow and they found it.  The Canterbury ski area opened this weekend with more than 80cm of cold, dry powder snow blanketing virtually the entire mountain. The snow fell in just a 36-hour period, meaning ski area staff worked throughout Friday night to groom and prepare the slopes for Saturday's opening.  

Mountain manager Ross Lawrence said the snow was so dry and fluffy it was difficult to even make a snowball. There are some very happy people out there having a really great time, he said. The powder’s certainly been very well tracked, and we’ve progressively opened more trails throughout the day following safety and avalanche control work.  Trails such as International, accessing the bottom loading station of the Towers triple chairlift, opened for the first time this season, which meant all the lifts were operating including the quad chair, two T-bars, two platters and learners lifts. Only the South Face experts only runs were inaccessible due to wind scouring at the top of the ridge.

Neither of Mt Hutt’s two half pipes were open today but Mr Lawrence said work would start tomorrow on one of the pipes and it would open as soon as possible.   The ski area was forced to close the road at about 1.30pm as all the car parks were at capacity.