Snow Reports
FAQ
Help!!
Log in to snowHeads to make it MUCH better!
Registration's totally free, of course, and makes snowHeads easier to use and to understand, gives better searching, filtering etc. as well as access to 'members only' forums, discounts and deals that U don't even know exist as a 'guest' user. (btw. 50,000+ snowHeads already know all this, making snowHeads the biggest, most active community of snow-heads in the UK, so you'll be in good company)..... When you register, you get our free weekly(-ish) snow report by email. It's rather good and not made up by tourist offices (or people that love the tourist office and want to marry it either)... We don't share your email address with anyone and we never send out any of those cheesy 'message from our partners' emails either. Anyway, snowHeads really is MUCH better when you're logged in - not least because you get to post your own messages complaining about things that annoy you like perhaps this banner which, incidentally, disappears when you log in :-)
Username:-
Password:
Remember me:
👁
durr, I forgot...
Or:
Register
(to be a proper snow-head, all official-like!)
The challenges of ski patrolling Mount Hutt
snowHeads Forum Index
>>>
The Piste
Prev topic
::
Next topic
Poster:
A snowHead
Poster:
A snowHead
This article on the ski patrolling of Mount Hutt, on the south island of New Zealand - in today's
Ashburton Guardian
- is worth a read.
Mount Hutt is somewhat distant from the grouping of ski areas around Queenstown, and has a notoriously bleak and remote location - accessed by a long (and really hairy!) access road that traverses old volcanoes. It has a strong following from skiers in Christchurch - the nearest major town.
In this case the reporter gets to the heart of the action by interviewing head of ski patrol Dan Kennedy at his 'HQ', 2086 metres up the mountain:
Quote:
The office is in a perfect position for monitoring the skifield; it has a spectacular view and on a clear visibility day patrollers can see right down the summit six chairlift and inner basin of Mt Hutt, over to the Canterbury Plains. The town of Methven, a huddle of infrastructure on the patchworked Plains, is just about centre view.
As we talk there is a noise of small rocks hitting the exterior of the patrol hut, and Dan’s description of “flying debris” remind one of being in tornadoes in the Twister movie.
Obviously
A snowHead
isn't a real person
Obviously
A snowHead
isn't a real person
David, Mt Hutt ....er.... for clarity [sorry, pedant alert] and just in case anyone planning a trip to NZ thought they might squeeze it in on a day trip from Queenstown, Mt Hutt is "somewhat" a hell of a lot distant from Queenstown - as in half way up the other end of the country.
But this IS a good article. I like especially like the opening lines: " “Beautiful one day, perfect the next,” is a phrase often spoken in the mountains when the weather is good and the surrounding scenery sparkles in majestic whiteness. But when the weather is bad, it is really bad."
Which is how it gets it's local name of Mt Shutt. Guaranteed the only day in your week you have to ski, the weather's closed the access road/lifts/slopes [or various permutations thereof].
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Mount Hutt is the location of my first tentative slide on snow - so it will always be special to me!
Arrive in Christchurch on Sunday - everything shut but we find the youth hostel. As we're checking in, we spot a fax pinned to the wall about fresh snow forecast for the night - which is funny since we've just flown in from a tropical Fiji. Boyfriend's (read avid skier) face suddenly lights up and gets chatting - turns out the hostel can put us on a bus at 6 next morning, rent us clothes and equipment and thats when I first tried out skiing on snow!
(and for a year reference , spent that evening getting drunk with all the other Pom's in the bar whilst watching Diana's funeral)
Terms and conditions
Privacy Policy
FAQ
Poster: A snowHead
