We have passed the first group of school holidays with a good turn out of families staying at the lodge over the two-week period.
Unfortunately, only the lower mountain was open for skiing due to the poor covering of snow on the upper mountain. Happy valley was open most days for skiing and the Rangatira lift later during the break.
More snow has fallen since, and the groomers have been pushing snow around on the upper mountain with a slow but sure build-up of upper mountain snow. Bookings are slow to fill up probably due to people being cautious until we get a decent fall of snow… All winter spaces have now been opened at our lodge. For more information on how this works go to the lodge bookings page. Even if you are not making a booking if you want to keep up to date with how things are, go to that page as this is the page with up-to-date booking information. Go to Wellington Tramping & Mountaineering website, Facilities, Ruapehu Lodge, Lodge Bookings page.
For the lodge the membership status is now frozen meaning that people can join the club during winter but the non-member rates and priority status for the lodge will remain until the end of October.
Keep the following dates in mind or better still on your calendar:
Sunday 8 th August to departure Friday 13 th August ski week 1, A couple of spaces
Most of the weeks between ski week 1 and ski week 2 are booked up. There is still space on all weekends up to the next school holidays.
There is now space available from Sunday 22 August to Friday 27th August. You can book the full week or part of the week. These spaces are now opened in the booking system so book in the usual manner. There is a leader for that week.
Sunday 13 th September to departure Friday 17 th September ski week 2. There are a few spaces.
Friday 1 October to Sunday 17 th October school holidays. The first week of October school holidays is generally full, plenty of space for the second week. Check the booking page.
We now have a Lodge promotions officer and our Lodge secretary returning so what we need is still a helper for the bookings team. There is always room for those who feel that they can contribute to the running of the lodge and join a very enthusiastic team.
Brian Goodwin
Lodge convenor
Upper mountain Valley T and Delta Chair opened Sat 31 July. Snow-cover not ‘complete’, and Waterfalls areskiable only for competent skiers to pick their way down ! More snow expected in the next few days.