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>================= Snow Reports
Still no new natural snow since Friday 10 July in the Southern Lakez fields. In fact today it is raining with the freezing level at 2, 000 metres (6 560 feet). That's just about the top of Treble Cone! Queenstown weather guru David Crowe commented on the radio that there was "absolutely no chance of a flake of snow from the current bad weather" with temperatures "well above the July average"....Eeek.
New Zealand meteorological Service chief meteorologist warned there could be 4 more weeks of these weather extremes. Slow drifting mild Northerly flows coming off the north Tasman mean we haven't really had a winter. This type of weather block can hold up for eight weeks, and we are in to about the fourth week now. There's a clue for those people having a guess in our snow fall competition!
We had two contributions to the snow over the last week. Some medals should probably be handed out to all those snowmakers that spend all night watching the thermometer and dew point to give mother nature a hand. Then their are the crews in the Snow groomers that shove it all in to the right place and leave the early birds a pretty nice carpet, all on a base of 20 - 30 cm! Good on ya guys and gals.
The other snow contribution comes from the frosts. A series of cool calm winter nights can see the snow grow! No bull. A few days ago the helicopter boys were skiing 30 cm of frost dried powder. OOohh, imagine that.
>** Coronet Peak.
An excellent week for snow making, grooming and opening of new trails. The half pipe has been closed a fair bit for maintenance but its getting some good hits when open. The trails are generally in good condition first thing in the morning but get cut up with icy patches by afternoon.
Saturday saw the beginning of the winter festival. Mountain events included the suitcase race won by the Mexicans, the celebrity challenge with celebs showing everyone how to look like fools on skis and the AJ Hackett Mountain Bikes on The Snow won by Queenstown mountain biking legend Tony T-Man Moore. Tragedy struck recently when his specialist downhill bike was stolen. This has put a serious dent in T-Man's build up to the World Cup in Canada so send him an
The T bar is still a long way off opening and off piste is definitely off the menu. Not looking so healthy after todays rain.
>** The Remarkables
Still only the beginners slopes open so they are struggling to say Open. The field looks pretty brown from the other side of Wakatipu valley, hard to imagine carving your way down homeward bound this year.....
>** Treble Cone.
A small amount of new snow on the upper mountain hasn't really made an impact this week. The saddle T Bar has some off trail skiing but it's still a bit thin.
The lower trail is wet and soft. The 60 metre half pipe is open.
>** Cardrona.
McDougalls and Captains main trails are open although Captains is a bit thin at the bottom. Nothing off the main trail yet.
The 30m magic carpet was worth its weight in gold over the busy school holiday season.
>** Waiorau Snow Farm
The new base building is nearing completion as the snow farm gears up for over 1000 engineers during the upcoming vehicle and tyre testing season.
Oh, and by the way, the cross country ski field with 42 kilometres of trails is free to the enthusiast. Good job.
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================ Upcoming Events
This weekend we have the K2 Snowboard challenge at Cardrona.
The Air New Zealand Queenstown Winter Festival is halfway through with some great stories from the jazz nite and the Steamy Night at the events centre ( no make that the wharf ) cancelled. The old story, don't mess with a good formula......Remaining events include the Dog Derby, Dog barking, Night of the Opera and Outrageous fashion Awards and the grand finale Big Air show at Coronet Peak on Sunday. Snow boarders and skiers go off...and get big air. Check out our full schedule of events.
Two regular Coronet Peak events this week with The Winter Classic on Tuesdays and the Pipeline Boarder Cross for the riders
================ That's all folks
Thanks for joining us see ya next month. Remember we welcome any feedback, suggestions, requests, comments etc. Just email these to mailto:[email protected]. This snow report is assembled from our own observations and reports from others and while every effort is made to get it right we can not attest to the accuracy or otherwise. Happy tripping.
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