Hot spots: Skifields inundated after polar blast
Canterbury’s skifields and frozen lakes were inundated with those keen to take full advantage of last week’s polar blast.
Blue skies and light winds drew large crowds on Saturday, with many braving less favourable conditions yesterday.
Some ski areas had already reached capacity by mid-morning, leaving long lines of cars snaking the roads.
The road to Canterbury’s Mt Hutt ski area closed before 8.30am, because all the car parks were full.
Many parked at the bottom, waiting for people to leave so they could ski in the afternoon.
‘‘It’s just the nature of a bluebird day, right in the middle of the school holidays after fresh snow – there’s always going to be days like this where demand outstrips supply,’’ said manager James McKenzie.
The skifield easily reached its capacity of 4000, he said. Buses ferried visitors from the lower car parks throughout the day.
‘‘We had 11 coaches to transport people from the lower car parks, which is pretty much a record for us.
Yesterday’s cloudy conditions and strong northwest gales drew fewer visitors, but McKenzie said there was still plenty of snow.
The polar blast had delivered a onemetre base of snow across the skifield.
While the Summit 6 chairlift was out of action due to 95km winds staff ran the quad chair lift at a faster speed to keep the crowds happy.
Further south at Mt Dobson, the ski area was full before 10.30am on Saturday.
Some of Canterbury’s lakes were completely frozen over.
At Lake Lyndon, Rusty Mckay and his family couldn’t resist the frozen lake on their way back from the Porters ski area.
They’d headed for the mountains ‘‘just like everyone else in Christchurch’’, he said.
‘‘I’ve been going up there for 30 years and I’ve never seen so many people . . . you only get conditions like that every few years.’’
It was the opening weekend for Mt Cheeseman ski area, which had an early blip on Saturday; the internet went down and its T-Bar had some issues.
Both problems were resolved and it was otherwise a great day, said marketing manager Ana Haase.
‘‘We had lots of people turn up and a packed car park – from about 1pm onwards we had everyone up on the field and just having a fantastic day,’’ she said.