Mt Hutt full on ‘bluebird’ day

A ‘‘bluebird’’ day stretched Mt Hutt skifield to capacity before the slopes even opened, with long queues for lifts and parking frustrating those eager to capitalise on the perfect weather.

The influx of visitors yesterday caused queues to snake all the way down the mountain, forcing some to turn to other skifields to get their fix.

Fifteen centimetres of fresh snow on Thursday, combined with the final day of the school holidays yesterday and all the runs on the mountain being open for the first time this season attracted many more than the 3000-skier limit.

Mt Hutt Ski Area manager James McKenzie said the field’s car parks reached initial capacity by 8.20am yesterday.

‘‘We’ve had good snowfall,’’ he said, ‘‘It’s a bluebird day [fresh snow followed by sunny skies] prior to the weekend.’’

Staff began letting groups of 50 people through later in the morning as a long vehicle queue continued to build, prioritising multiple-occupant vehicles to the upper car parks. McKenzie said hopeful skiers were let onto the mountain about 10.30am after the early birds got their ‘‘fix of runs for the day’’.

Christchurch skier Michinori Kagawa missed out on his morning skiing as snaking queues of snow sport enthusiasts kept him from accessing Mt Hutt skifield – the busiest he has ever seen it.

‘‘When we were driving to Mt Hutt, we saw many cars driving back to the main road (inland scenic route) and we didn’t know at first why so many people were driving back, but when we got there, we knew that many people gave up waiting and returned.’’

After about 25 minutes, Kagawa gave up and headed for Porters skifield about one hour’s drive away.

Porters Alpine Resort general manager John Nicholson said huge numbers were seen on the slopes yesterday. The skifield started receiving calls from about 8.30am from those unable to get up to Mt Hutt because of the large queues.

About 1200 people graced the slopes, well above last year’s school holiday average of about 501 a day and also above last year’s school holiday peak of 900.

‘‘It’s fantastic and all the elements have aligned today with about [5 centimetres] of snow overnight and really nice weather conditions . . . and some fantastic work from our snow groomers.’’

Mt Hutt Ski Area had a record opening day on June 11 with more than 2200 people as of noon, beating the previous record of

2093 in 2009.

Mt Dobson Ski Area near Fairlie also had a full car park as of 9am yesterday, with 25cm of fresh snow overnight.

Business manager James Lazor said he was greeted with visitors at the gate at

6.45am. Some people were spillovers over from a packed Mt Hutt.

‘‘We knew it . . . It’s absolutely gorgeous, bluebird day . . . It’s turned out to be a perfect day,’’ Lazor said.

The road was closed after they had a big influx in the morning and there were lots of families on the slopes, he said.

‘‘It’s very relaxed right now . . . a big part of closing the road is to make sure the experience for everybody is that they absolutely enjoy it.’’

Further south, Cardrona Alpine Resort near Wa¯ naka also enjoyed clear blue skies, sharing a photo of the ‘‘perfect’’ day.

Meanwhile, other Canterbury ski fields struggled to welcome guests because of damaged access roads after heavy rain that battered much of the West Coast and mountain ranges over the weekend.

Craigieburn Valley Ski Area remained closed after 50 metres of the access road to the slopes washed away.

Neighbouring Mt Cheeseman Ski Area also remained closed because of issues on its access road.