First Day of Spring

Today marked the 1st day of spring in Aoteroa. Turoa has sure turned it on for us this week. The good Drs have skied every day. Thats like a record for the last few yrs I would think. I however can only manage 4 days this week.

HNE queue. We have been spoilt this week with ski straight on & no queues

This week has certainly felt like ground hog day. Ski, sleep, ski, repeat. It has hardly been necessary to check the snow report in the morning or the snow forecast for the last week.

This weekend marks 70yrs of skiing at Ruapehu. Fingers crossed for another 70 yrs homies. Of course in true ski tradition a retro day is planed unfortunately some of us boomers can no longer fit into our old gear or even turn those old narrow skis and they now grace the walls of our ski chalets.

Things are turning warm folks with +ve temps all over the hill today. The wind however kept everything firm off piste today.

Crowds flocked to Turoa today and once again lots of school kids were on the hill. Our Belgium visitor questioned is there no Law about school attendance here in NZ and what would be the consequences for missing school. Looking around today one would have to say no consequences.

Snow Conditions: Similar to Wednesday when I last had my skis on. By lunch a lot of snow had been pushed onto the side of runs and the high traffic areas down the middle were scraped off to reveal ice.

Over 2,000 people would have been up today with the No 2 car park almost full. This is a Friday my readers. AJ’s significant other 1/2 rented skis slope side today and had to wait for over an hour to get them, the queues at the base to rent gear and buy tickets was long. I did however meet a lovely young person who attends PNBHS and we talked up a storm. However the Movenpick & Parklane was ski straight on by the time we were sorted. Queues at the HNE however remained weekend like the whole time we were there and I only skied the Giant today.