Well we can only hope that our season follows the pattern of the North Island resorts in NZ. Turoa has recieved a further 30-40cm of snow over the past 36hrs, added to an existing upper mountain base of over 3m!!

Though Turoa closed nearly 2 weeks ago, the snow cover has continued to improve, and thoughts are now turning to re-opening the ski areas. RAL the operating company are now considering reopening for Christmas and New Year.... So if your looking for a white Christmas, perhaps we're in the wrong Hemisphere, a white Christmas down under???? What next!

Just thinking, that would be like CairnGorm reopening at the end of June!! We can but hope!

Yes the ski-ing in NZ has been great this year .In late october ski-ing at Mt Hutt we had a few fantastic days of powder ski-ing, MT Hutt is a South Is Land field,there was also fantastic conditions at Cardrona futher south.
The fields usualy close at the end of oct due to lack of skiers,who start to think of summer things.
Mt Ruapehu did get lots more snow this season than the St Island ski fields, but actually had a worse season than last year as far as the number of skiers ski-ing ,due to bad weather, which kept people off the fields on Ruapehu, The North Island fields get lots of bad weather like Cairngorm.
More skiers from up north came south to ski for their holidays this season . cheers don

Are we in the wrong hemishpere for a white Christmas?? Ruapehu Alpine Lifts has confirmed today that they are re-opening Whakapapa Ski Area on New Zealand's North Island for snowsports from 7th December and through Christmas and Newyear till Jan 5th.

Shall we go all American when carving up Coire Cas on the 4th of July.... Well if it can snow like that down there, it can up here!! Well we can still dream....

I seem to remember watching people ski-ing across teh Cairngorm Plateau in June Last year.
And wishing I had mine .. .

Ruth: I don't think you saw skiers on the Cairngorm Plateau in June last year, I went up there onto Braeriach with my mountain skis at the end of April and there was so little snow I didn't even both putting them on once. I looked like a right idiot ;-) ! The year before was much better for skiing on the plateau, I think there was skiing until the middle of June, was a great year, bar F&M.

I'm going to NZ next autumn (well spring down there) to do a study on ski related injuries, so I'nm hoping for more of the same next year as well.

BTW if you follow the links below there are some web-cam pictures of Turoa. These still masses of snow!!!

South side (Turoa)
[www2.snow.co.nz]

North side (Whakapapa)
[www2.snow.co.nz]

They could open most of the mountain if they wanted!!! It would be fantastic for ski mountaineering at the moment. I'm sure all those lucky Kiwis will be out there today!

any picys

Wow, where did you find this thread from?

If we are mentioning NZ, they've had an awesome start to their season. 14 days to go until the two main Mt Ruapehu resorts open they already have a fantastic cover across the whole two islands and first turns have already been bagged on Taranaki.

Have a look at [www.snow.co.nz] for some pics of their preseason snowfalls.

Big Sly, I was pretty confused reading the thread until I finally spotted the dates on it!

Anyway, here in Canterbury it's looking promising. Mt Dobson is opening this weekend (although I'm working....). Hutt looking good for opening day June 10th: webcam on www.nzski.com. I've bought a season ticket and hope to get value for money for it before leaving NZ in early July!

BTW Taranaki looking less good on today's webcams, but am still hoping to ski tour it before heading home. Anyone been up it?

'fraid not. Do have a pic of Taranaki from Turoa when I was there in October 2003. Looks massive for a mountain that's the best part of 200km away. Don't know how this old post was found from the depths. The last poster was me back in December 2002!!!

Attachments: Taranki_Turoa.jpg (90kB)