Day 77 (22 August): Skiing in August!
I went skiing today at a mountain called Treble Cone (about 1.5 hours from Queenstown by bus since my rental car agreement said I couldn't drive the road to the mountain as it was too dangerous). Treble Cone is supposed to offer NZ's best, most advanced skiing terrain on a mountain with commercial ski lifts. The skiing in the morning wasn't great as there were white-out snow conditions. In the afternoon, however, it was great as the sky cleared and much of the mountain had about 6 inches of fresh, untouched snow--making it one of my best ski days ever as the mountain had some nice shoots between boulders on its backside.
On the bus ride back, the bus took a long stop at Cadrona Hotel which has one of NZ's most famous pubs known for its Apres Ski specials that include outdoor fires, hot black currant juice, etc.
Observations:
1) Finding what you need. Apparently the Austrian Ski Team comes to NZ during every European summer to find the snow that it needs.
2) Size doesn't matter. Treble Cone only had two chair lifts operating (and only three chair lifts total) but still had a lot of terrain that was accessible from those lifts.
3) NZ is one of the cheapest places in the world to go Heli-Skiing (e.g. jumping out of Helicopters to go skiing on fresh snow) at around only USD 425 a day. Too bad I don't have that kind of money to spend at this point because some of the mountains around here look amazing.
4) British in New Zealand. There are lots of British people in New Zealand many of whom become New Zealand citizens, but it seems like most of the other travellers here are either from the UK or Australia. (Although the locals make fun of Australians a lot.)
On the bus ride back, the bus took a long stop at Cadrona Hotel which has one of NZ's most famous pubs known for its Apres Ski specials that include outdoor fires, hot black currant juice, etc.
Observations:
1) Finding what you need. Apparently the Austrian Ski Team comes to NZ during every European summer to find the snow that it needs.
2) Size doesn't matter. Treble Cone only had two chair lifts operating (and only three chair lifts total) but still had a lot of terrain that was accessible from those lifts.
3) NZ is one of the cheapest places in the world to go Heli-Skiing (e.g. jumping out of Helicopters to go skiing on fresh snow) at around only USD 425 a day. Too bad I don't have that kind of money to spend at this point because some of the mountains around here look amazing.
4) British in New Zealand. There are lots of British people in New Zealand many of whom become New Zealand citizens, but it seems like most of the other travellers here are either from the UK or Australia. (Although the locals make fun of Australians a lot.)
posted by Traveling Brian at 10:37 PM
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