Snow Report 13 July 2013 - Australia & New Zealand

AUSTRALIA

Here we are into peak season 2013 with the Aussie school holidays drawing to a close. Some good snow a week ago helped the Victorian and NSW ski resorts to open more lifts and terrain for skiers and riders to enjoy.

After warm temperatures and some rain at first, the latter half of the coming week is looking good for some serious snowfalls. Hopefully that will continue into August and push the snow depths above the one-metre mark.

Falls Creek 12 July 2013 [Source: Falls Creek FB page]

Mt Hotham
Natural Snow Depth: 44cms
Hotham has done well getting Heavenly Valley open as this great terrain provides a significant draw to the mountain. As of today, the Summit and Big D areas above the road are open. Below the road there is skiing on the Village loop and Heavenly Valley.

Falls Creek
Natural Snow Depth: 53cms
Falls always does well when the snow depths aren't great. The recent storm cycle brought the whole of the back of Falls open with its large amount of intermediate terrain from Drovers Dream to Ruined Castle. They've also opened up the Summit, but the snow is patchy in the bowl.

Perisher 13 July 2013 [Source: perisher.com.au]

Mt Buller

Natural Snow Depth: 29cms

The snowfalls last week at Mt Buller enabled the Summit/Howqua areas to open, adding to the intermediate runs around Wombat.

Perisher

Natural Snow Depth: Approx 50cms

Perisher now has extensive terrain open with 42 of 47 lifts spinning this weekend. Conditions look pretty damn good on the cams!

Thredbo
Natural Snow Depth: Approx 20-70cms
Just about all the lifts are now open at Thredbo and the snow cover improves as you get higher up the mountain.

NEW ZEALAND

Treble Cone 9 July 2013

Conditions have been fantastic in the South Island of New Zealand during the past week and all of the skifields have now opened. I've just been over there to experience it and it is with some sadness that I'm back on this side of the ditch!

The pictures below were taken at the skifields around Wanaka over the last week.

It started off very windy and warm at the end of last week, with rain affecting most skifields. By last Sunday the winds changed and it cooled. The snowline fell progressively from above 1500m, down to about 700m. Winds eased off during this past week and there were some glorious recent sunny days.

Some snow showers are forecast over the next few days, then a return to fine conditions.

Captains @ Cardrona 8 July 2013

North Canterbury and Nelson

Rainbow - Up in the beautiful Nelson Lakes is Rainbow skifield, a field run by volunteers and now open with 40/15cms. Hanmer Springs (92cms) has a skifield close to the hot springs town which opened on the 4th July. Mt Lyford - further east near Kaikoura, has 160cms and full snow cover.

Canterbury

Porters (200/100cms) finally celebrated its opening day after completing work following the avalanche incident of late June. The ski area has magnificent cover following weeks of storms and snowfalls. Wind closures dogged Mt Hutt (350/310cms) during the recent storm, but things cleared up for some fantastic skiing during this past week. The triple chair, which was damaged during control work weeks back, is still not operational. Lets hope it comes back online soon.

Valley View @ Cardrona 8 July 2013

The Mackenzie

Ohau (160/80cms) is reporting great skiing on and off-piste, while Roundhill (80cms) is looking like it has good cover on the cams. Mt Dobson (100cms) lost some snow in the warmer weather but is still looking good for so early in July.

Wanaka

Treble Cone (300/20cms) has been skiing brilliantly this week. The Saddle Basin got a good fall of snow even while the temps were warm, and the later top-up was more than welcome in the Home Basin which had little cover at the bottom a week ago.

Once the avalanche control work was completed last weekend, the Saddle was skiing beautifully with dry, winter snow off-piste. Lovely turns everywhere! The Motatapu Chutes (seen from picture above) opened on 9 July and the Home Basin was skiing well off-piste almost to the base (1260m).

Shadow Basin @ The Remarkables 10 July 2013

Cardrona (125/45cms) got a good top-up of snow last weekend, right down almost to the bottom of the gorgeous valley it presides over. It was very windy on the days I was there, and the powder was variable and somewhat wind-affected at times.

Monday 8 July was a great day as the sun came out and the wind eased, and not least thanks to another top-up of dry snow the previous day.

Skied the Valley View area for the first time, both on and off-piste. Its quite gentle terrain, but makes for some fun variation down to 1260m, and Tailrace is a cracking wide run for some fast GS turns! Otherwise, riding around Arcadia/Powderkeg and in the Captains Basin was great fun over multiple visits to lovely Cardies.

Queenstown

Homeward Runs @ The Remarkables 10 July 2013

Coronet Peak (90/50cms), being lower, lost almost all its off-piste in the warm, windy weather last weekend. Fortunately it got it all back naturally when the snow level lowered, and supplemented it further with its massive snowmaking system in the following cold spell.

The Remarkables (130/90cms) did very well out of the storm and is skiing incredibly this early in the season. We don't usually get here until late Spring, so this was a treat to find the place in such good nick.

I managed to get a run in on Homeward for the first time and I have to say that was a highlight of the short visit last week! What an incredible experience, even after enjoying the dry, winter snow in the Shadow Basin all morning. I was buzzing in the shuttle that takes you back from the bottom of this huge, wide bowl.