Paul Anderson: NZSki chief executive on Canterbury’s Mt Hutt seeing a busy Matariki weekend

Snowmaking is proving its worth at ski fields, with the busiest weekend at Canterbury's Mount Hutt in a decade.

More than 10,000 people hit the slopes over the long weekend, helped by up to a metre of fresh snow and three bluebird days.

Snowmaking boosted the base as much as 1.5 metres in parts.

NZSki chief executive Paul Anderson says the tech's become essential - and is here to stay.

"It allows us to get open as early as we possibly can, cover the slopes, and then the natural snow will come along and then supplement that good base that we have built the snowmakers."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
So it's been in the news. Amount Hut had a
bumper day, a bumper weekend, some of the best conditions
I've ever had. Ten thousand people hit the slopes during
the three day month of Leaky weekend. So I'm joined
now by m Zenski Chief executive Paul Anderson. Paul gooday, gooday,
How I am good? You must be buzzing about it,
and not only that, your knees must be aching.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Yeah, we're thrilled. We've had a fantastic week here, not
just to Mount Hut but also at currently Peaking. The Remarkables.
We've had a you know, it was a slower start
to the ski season, so we had some great snow
last week and that's brought all the locals out to
join the Aussies that we already had skiing with us.

Speaker 1 (00:40):
One thing we have noticed, of course, is that recently
you've envested more and more and more on every field
and snow making machines. Are they making the difference? So
all you need is one dump to get your fields open.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
Yeah, look, definitely snowmakings here and it's here to stay.
What it does is it allows us to get open
as early as we possibly can cover the slopes and
then the natural snow can come along and supplement that
good base that we can build with the snowmakers.

Speaker 1 (01:08):
Is the natural snow coming, yeah, sure is.

Speaker 2 (01:11):
You know, we're in this al Nino period now and
in theory that should give us southwesters, which is fantastic
for particularly the south of the South Island. Having said
that Mountain Herts had the mother load, you know, they've
just had a ninety seven centimeter storm comes through there
and their skiing in every single pocket of that mountain
at the moment.

Speaker 1 (01:31):
Cardrone has been investing in the Soho basin and I
skied it last year and it's wonderful and it's huge,
and it made them a very big resort. And now
we hear that the Remarkables want to open up a
new basin up the back as well, and that is
huge and the skiing there will be remarkable. But many
people have been warning that New Zealand ski fields face
a very limited future because of the old climate change thing.

(01:52):
So why are these ski fields so keen to put
hundreds of millions of dollars into new terrain if the
snow is dodgy.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
We have looked at the climate models, and we're as
part of our planning. That's obviously what we need to do.
The slopes we're looking at at expanding to it. The
remarkables are actually southeast facing and they're higher than where
we currently operate. So from a climate change perspective, it

(02:22):
is actually part of our adaptation strategy. Currenty Peak, which
is a relatively low resort, Again it is southeast facing slopes,
so while it will get great morning sun, it doesn't
get that warmer evening sun, so it retains its snow also.
So it's about aspect, but it's about also understanding what
the climate is going to bring us in designing to that.

Speaker 1 (02:46):
Well, and look, let's be honest. Current Peak is just
a fun park, but your real alpine resorts Cardrona and
the remarkables are Mount Hart in particular. They've got it
long future.

Speaker 2 (02:55):
You reckon, Well, yeah, I wouldn't say that about Current
If you're a local in Queenstown, that is the place
they go to ski because they know you get the
most vertical meters and it's the most reliable snow because
it's got the biggest snowmaking installation of the Southern Hemisphere.
But in terms of scal and Scope. You're right in

(03:17):
saying remarkables is going to be a big part of
our future here in Queenstown, not just for the Australians
coming over to ski, but we've got a growing local
population and they all love to ski down that southern
part of Queenstown where there's a lot of housing projects
going on at the moment. We've got to make sure
we can cater for our local population as well as

(03:38):
the tourists.

Speaker 1 (03:38):
The other thing we found out from Mount Hut, of course,
is that people don't listen to warnings. There was a
few people went up went up the road and they
didn't take the chains and bam they got hit with
an eight hundred dollars fine and some of them stood
off the road. And I don't ever want to slip
off the Mount Hut road. I mean, it's it's a nightmare.
So that's a warning if they say chains, take chains.

Speaker 2 (03:57):
Yeah absolutely, I mean I just said, people be considerative
of other people, because if you're going to get stuck
on the road, you're gonna you're gonna delay a lot
of people who are investing their time and money to
be up there. So yeah, we wanna we want to
be feared to everyone. So we're encouraging people just to
heat the chain calls, spend ten or fifteen minutes putting

(04:20):
their chains on and then everyone's safe.

Speaker 1 (04:22):
Good or just take the shuttle. But there we go. Hey,
I carry on, have a great season. I'm down in September.
Cup Wait and I love it. And that is Paul
Anderson from m zien Ski.

Speaker 2 (04:31):
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