The mountain gods have spoken. There will be no covid problems this season, the mountain will not erupt, and the snow will continue to fall at night with intermittent periods of sunshine during the day. Car parking will be free for all if there is space. The start of the season has had an early fall of snow thanks to an aggressive system driving up polar air and dumping snow.
We had a successful clean and food carry weekend in May and then also was an unexpected fall of snow. The Saturday morning was spent carrying food to the lodge during a pleasant calm morning with a good snow covering which continued falling into Monday. It certainly feels like winter.
We are moving forward for winter bookings. Again, this year we are trying to cater for those who need to plan well ahead and for those who are not able to decide when to make bookings till nearer the time. Go to the Lodge Bookings Page to find out when the second release of bunks is going to occur for each time period. This applies to weekends not weeks.
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. So please do not hassle our booking team with excuses.
We always have ski weeks available and in a good year, book out 4 of the available 8 weeks to Non-member groups. At the moment we have three weeks booked by Non-member groups and that could be reduced at very little notice. These bookings are essential for the economics of the lodge, and we rely on summer groups also which we lost all last summer because of covid. We are also expected under our license with DOC to provide accommodation for school groups etc.
It has been very difficult to put together some type of schedule due to problems in nailing down other people’s plans. Both groups and a lot of this is influenced by RAL’s programme. In a good year we would have this sorted by March. This year it has been very recent.
Jan and I have been organising the “seniors” weeks up to two a year for probably ten years now.
This year we have decided on one “club ski week” in September. However, there are other weeks available to book or to lead if you are able.
The schedule of ski weeks looks like this. Put these dates on your calendar.
- Mon 8 August to Friday 12 August Non-member group. Booked.
- Sunday 14 August to Friday 19 August Space available but partly booked by Christian’s group. So, there is a leader.
- Sunday 21 August to Friday 26th August Empty 32 spaces available. Requires a leader.
- Sunday 28th August to Friday 2 September. Was booked by a group but they cancelled. Two people are booked one is a trained lodge operator / leader.
- Sunday 4th September to Friday 9th September Non-member group. Booked.
- Sunday 11th September to Friday 16th September No bookings. Requires a leader.
- Sunday 18th September to Friday 23rd September Our week. Club ski week. Still some space.
- Monday 26th September to Friday 30 September Non-member group. Booked.
You are more than welcome to join us on our September club ski week. Member or non-member. Just book online as usual or select from the possible alternative list above.
Brian
Lodge convenor
