{"id":522968,"date":"2026-07-12T23:33:06","date_gmt":"2026-07-12T23:33:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/522968\/"},"modified":"2026-07-12T23:33:06","modified_gmt":"2026-07-12T23:33:06","slug":"mt-hutt-celebrates-busiest-day-in-10-seasons-after-fresh-snowfall-and-bluebird-skies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/522968\/","title":{"rendered":"Mt Hutt celebrates busiest day in 10 seasons after fresh snowfall and bluebird skies"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cWe call it wall-to-wall, top-to-bottom skiing and riding.\u201d <\/p>\n

McKenzie said that with that many people shredding, \u201cit\u2019s also very congested, so not the sort of day we want a lot of, but we do our best to cope\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"MtMt Hutt general manager James McKenzie says the conditions were some of the best they\u2019ve seen for years. Photo \/ Rosie Leishman <\/p>\n

The NZSki field was forced to delay its opening for two weeks before last week\u2019s winter storm brought at least 97cm of snow.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve still got quite a bit to do to catch up from being closed beyond our scheduled opening, but with the snow we\u2019ve got now, we have the opportunity to claw back some of those early-season losses,\u201d McKenzie said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a bit of a roller coaster working in the mountains and being at the mercy of the weather, but as soon as we get the opportunity to open and we can operate safely, we will.\u201d<\/p>\n

He explained getting this much snow so early is good news for a long season ahead.<\/p>\n

With the help of snowmaking machines, \u201cwe\u2019re up to 1.5 metres of snow in some areas on our main trails, which sets us up really for the whole of the winter for the most part\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo get past that level at this stage of the season is good news for a long winter for us at Mt Hutt.\u201d<\/p>\n

Skier Caroline Ellis said although it was busy, the queues moved quickly and staff were friendly, so it didn\u2019t impact her day and she still got a lot of skiing in.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s world-class and one of the better mountains I\u2019ve skied at with snow this good.\u201d <\/p>\n

She hopes it\u2019s the start of a long season.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was really cold, so I feel like there\u2019s more snow to come.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another skier, Archie Watt, 15, says the lines might have been long but \u201cthe conditions, sunny day, fresh tracks, amazing view, nice snow meant the vibes were great\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"DespiteDespite the people, it didn\u2019t take longer than 15 minutes to get through the chairlift lines. Photo \/ Rosie Leishman<\/p>\n

Road chaos<\/p>\n

But the busy weekend didn\u2019t come without its challenges, as several drivers ignored chain requirements, got stuck and blocked all road access, causing major delays for other visitors, buses and staff on Friday.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything was going really well up until the point where probably about half a dozen or so two-wheel drive vehicles didn\u2019t follow our advice to fit chains at the start of the access road,\u201d McKenzie said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey created blockages along the access road, which held up half of the people trying to get up the mountain.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe knock-on impact of that poor decision-making by a few guests rippled through and actually created some significant delays, which was really unfortunate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mt Hutt tried to counter that by keeping the ski area open an extra hour, to 5pm, on Friday.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re hoping that compensated for a little bit, but it certainly would have been very frustrating sitting in a traffic jam for up to two hours for some people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Expansion on the forecast<\/p>\n

\"PlansPlans for expansion of Mt Hutt’s base area is on the forecast to cope with the demand. Photo \/ Supplied<\/p>\n

Despite the crowds, it didn\u2019t take longer than 15 minutes to get through the chairlift lines.<\/p>\n

But McKenzie acknowledges the current base facilities are a little small for that level of demand.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we have at the moment serves pretty well for an average day, but when it gets a bit more patronage, it gets harder to accommodate everybody,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have some plans for further developments with the council now, building consent and so on, which would be really great to see and be able to accommodate slightly busier days more comfortably.<\/p>\n

\u201cKeep on coming and we\u2019ll keep on investing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cWe call it wall-to-wall, top-to-bottom skiing and riding.\u201d McKenzie said that with that many people shredding, \u201cit\u2019s also…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":522969,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[9055,74,95,158000,27562,10043,9632,5972,380,5504,8456,4999,49947,78,10048,111,43,139,69,6926,4693,9877,23851,73660,4497],"class_list":["post-522968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-9055","tag-after","tag-and","tag-bluebird","tag-busiest","tag-canterburys","tag-celebrates","tag-day","tag-decade","tag-following","tag-fresh","tag-friday","tag-hutt","tag-in","tag-mt","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-season","tag-seasons","tag-skies","tag-slow","tag-snowfall","tag-start"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=522968"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522968\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/522969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=522968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=522968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=522968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}