Well, there I was, blisfully asleep until a damned freight train when past my window at 4am. Actually, was woken up by gale force winds and driving rain. Went back to bed and got up at 5:45 as usual and cast an eye out the door. My eye froze! It was cold, windy & wet. Made a cuppa and logged onto Coronets website. What a load of poop. They have changed the whole layout & it was stuck on yesterday afternoons report. Cameras were dead, no up to the minute road report. Still telling me some wind and a basically fine day for today. Bollocks. Sent them a nice email I did.
Basically it poured until about 10am so I wasn’t too upset about staying home. Went into town to do a coffee and read the paper.

I got home & checked the mountain again and they had an update showing as 5am basically saying it was a gale & rain/snow down to 1200 metres. Well d’oh. So not impressed with NZski.

I sat and did some work, finished the papers and had a bite for lunch. By 1pm it had closed in and started to get cold and the heavens opened again. So I think it is going to be a cold, wet night but at least the wind is no longer gale force but it is still pretty yuk outside. With a bit of luck some of this rain will fall as snow up the mountain if it cools down enough otherwise Coronet will have nothing left after a day of solid rain. here’s keeping fingers crossed!

Clay

Clear Skies

Hi Everyone.

This post is a little late. Should have gone up last night ( Wednesday ) but I got distracted ( by TV 🙁 )

As a total difference to Tuesday, you could see where you were going which was great. Had an excellent day skiing despite the weather forecast being for rain, but it is coming… Got some great runs in but it crowded up early as there was a teachers strike on so all the kids came up to the snow. Not much else to report, got a couple of nice photos, one of which I used on Instagram.

Won’t be popular though this morning, I crashed one of the servers at work so David will be cursing me this morning. Oooops, sorry, me bad.

As I write this on Thursday morning, the situation is vastly different so as soon as it is light enough I will take a photo and do another post.

Clayton

Or maybe the caption should read “Snowdance gone wrong!”

Hi everyone. Well, I have been doing everything in my power to appease the snow gods. It looked promising late yesterday but woke up this morning to what was a warm morning for this time of year. No ice, no rain, no snow 🙁
It was still & overcast. Had a great run up the mountain and we were all sitting back waiting for first tracks to open. They had an FIS rated race day today so the base was pretty crowded so while we were waiting for all the racers to head out we noticed the top of Coronet had been shrouded by low cloud. A couple of the locals went out, did one run & came in as the visibility was getting worse. After that the rain set in. There was a little bit of very wet snow but mostly just sleet & rain. Seems all my snowdance did was make someone upstairs laugh!

Anyhows, overall it was a great day. Ended up drowned like a rat but surprisingly the snow held up reasonably well. Enjoy the photos and maybe tomorrow we’ll have better luck!

Clay

Well, a beautiful dawn to wake up to as the photo shows…pity I was an hour late 🙁

Had a really nice social catch up with our hosts, not too many drinkies ( Marlborough wines rock, just saying ) and a fairly early night. Set the alarm & off to sleep. Alarm went off this morning so I leisurely got up, made a coffee, got dressed, laa laa laa. Turned on the Ipad & went holy crap. It’s 7am. I’d set the alarm for 6:45 instead of 5:45 🙁 Still made it up to Coronet to have a quick catch up with the locals before heading out for the morning.

The field badly needs some snow but the main trails were all fine. Lot of fun actually. After I clocked up some runs I headed into Queenstown as I needed to drop Rogers ski jacket off for some repairs. They did it on the spot for us as old clients!

Ducked into Halo for a coffee & yumfing then headed back home, chucked on the backpack, but some goodies in it & headed out for a hike. Was out for about 2 hours but it started to cool down so I called it quits. Will hit it again on Sunday, weather permitting, as it is about a 4 hour round hike.

Took some photos late this afternoon, as the skies got dark & the wind picked up. Maybe, just maybe we might get a dusting of snow tonight. Fingers crossed.

Clayton

So, where do I start? We had sort of got ourselves into a routine and were just settling in nicely, when Roger got an ominous text…uh-oh 🙁 The shipping gods had conspired to put a dampener on our holidays. With only a couple of days warning, Roger was recalled back to Australia to resume work. Bummer. However, before he left we had a great session with the owners and lots of wine was drunk & lots of tales told. It was a hoot of an evening so we passed on the next day of skiing as we were rather wasted and tired. We didn’t call it quits until 12:30 in the morning.

We got in a couple of more days on the slopes, went over to The Remarkables and had a blast and then finished up at Coronet. Even managed to get in a first tracks on the morning Roger left which was last Thursday. On that last morning he managed to get some camera footage which I have been working on so I can post it. We have not had a lot of luck this year with cameras & batteries. They really don’t like cold weather. Despite cycling them all year round and checking before we left, we got over here to find one of the main camera batteries had died, so this will be a warranty issue with DJI when I get home. We also lost one of the 2 way radio batteries as well. Aaargh.

Anyhows, over the last few days I have managed to get quite a few photos which will go up later this evening. Hope everyone is well, and now I am settled again, I hope to be a bit more diligent with the blog. I will probably do another update later tonight as it is almost time to get ready to head over to town for dinner, then I am going next door for Sunday night drinkies!

Clayton

Base is there somewhere

Well hello from across the ditch.

OK, so we’re a bit slack..it’s not called a holiday for nothing 🙂 The last 24-48 hours have been a blast. Getting ourselves organised and working out what to do. We had planned to go over to the Remarks yesterday but the night before we looked at the forecast and thought better of it. Glad we did. Got up yesterday ( Wednesday ) to a very ordinary morning. Cold, wet, overcast & windy.

Thought we might have to put chains on but the only part that we lost a little bit of grip was in the carpark. Totally iced over & treacherous. Got up to the base, tossed our gear on and headed up to the deck. Sitting having a coffee waiting for first tracks & it started to snow, lightly at first then it just blasted down. Skiing visibility was seriously low and it was a case of skiing from snowgun to snowgun.

In total over about 2 hours we copped 3 inches of snow. It was a little bit wet at the base but up top, it was just perfect. The day actually cleared up and it was just magic. We came down and had a couple of drinkies & a snooze then we goofed. Got hooked on watching Youtube and before we knew it was 1am! We have not got out early this morning so it remains to be seen what we will do today as it is a bit ordinary again.

Anyhows folks, enjoy the pikkies and I will load some more up later on, for now, it’s off to town for coffee!

C & R

Hi everyone.

Yes, we’re still alive 🤣. I’ll do a post later on tonight. Been a little preoccupied!

C & R

Hello fron across the ditch!!

It is so nice to be back amongst friends! We had a great flight over, got the car upgrade we were promised and settled in. Went over to the New Orleans pub and had a really good pub meal and then wandered home to relax & have some much needed medicine. ( Scotch in other words!)

Got up early & headed up to Coronet Peak where we were greeted as long lost friends, which was so nice. Conditions were excellent as you can see from the above early morning pikkie. I scored literally first tracks on the Meadows and might I say, Roged was sooooo peeved that I got in some secret off season training. Yay to CJ! Mission totally accomplished. We had a wow of a day and came down, did some shopping and decided to relax & have a BBQ.

Oh-oooh…problems. First we found a water leak outside so we let Adam & Eunie ( our hosts ) know, the you wouldn’t believe it…we ran out of gas 🙁 Some start to a relaxing arvo 🙁

Anyhows, a few scotches later & all is well so enjoy the start of the photos for the year.

Finally thanks to my most wonderful staff for filling in for me & thanks to everyone at Urban Xtreme for getting me & my secret mission off the ground, you guys rock!

Till tomorrow everyone.

C & R

It is with great sadness that we learnt over the weekend that Sir Les has surrendered his second ski. He was an absolute gentleman and a very good friend and we owe him a great deal. As one of the founders and major drivers of the One Ski in the Grave Club, he was a welcome sight on the mountain and his connection goes back to the origins of the field in ’47 and he & his brother were instrumental in the construction of the first lift towers in the 60’s. He was a competitive skier not just on piste but also in cross country winning the NZ title in 1959.

Our thoughts and prayers are with his wife Judy and their sons. 🙁

Had to post this one from the Coronet Express this morning.  Last weeks snow has almost melted away but it’s a beautiful day. Hurry up winter!