Ski Mount Hutt or Porter Height from Methven                            

Page updated: Friday 2 October 2009 - Final update for 09

This page is updated every Friday during the ski and ride season and earlier if some big news comes in such as a huge dump of freshies!





Hutt and BR endure in Canterbury

While further south many of the fields are now closing the season is still going pretty well in Canterbury with Mount Hutt open to 18 October and Broken River aiming to operate weekends through October if conditions permit. Unfortunately despite good snow bases most of the other fields will close this weekend. Links to BR and Mount Hutt snow reports are further down the page.


Broken River mid winter - a nice play to go!

Porters to be the new home of NZ Skiing?

Powderhound has long thought that Porters has the potential to be NZ's best ski area it has the best advanced terrain other than TC and the potential to develop great intermediate facilities.
Read on for this exciting news:

A $250 million plan for Canterbury's second-biggest ski-field could see Christchurch rivalling Queenstown for the international ski-tourist dollar.

A consortium of New Zealand and Australian investors that bought the Porters Ski Area 2 1/2 years ago wants to build European-style accommodation for up to 3000 people at the foot of the mountain and expand the 700-hectare ski area into the adjoining Crystal Valley.

The plan, which could take 10 years to complete, would include more terrain for family and intermediate skiers.

The consortium proposes a gondola up to the slopes from a car park and resort at the base of the ski area, snowmaking on the main trails and a ski trail through regenerating native beech forest down to the village for skiers at the end of the day.

Blackfish - comprising the families of Christchurch investor and Porters Ski Area managing director Michael Sleigh and of Sydney businessmen Duncan Bull and Simon Harvey - wants the development to be environmentally acceptable.

Sleigh said skiers could drive on sealed roads from Christchurch to the car park, and from there get on the gondola.

Snowmaking was essential to attract tourists, he said. "If you are an Australian looking at a ski holiday, you want to know you will arrive and that skiing will be open."

The field, an hour's drive from Christchurch, employed 40 staff, he said, but the new resort would employ another 35 in permanent jobs and up to 400 in seasonal work.

He wanted the field to be as big as Mt Hutt, the region's biggest ski area, which sells five times as many lift passes as Porters.

"It would be great for Canterbury to have another big ski area," Sleigh said.

"New Zealand tourism, particularly winter tourism, has still got really good opportunities to grow in a global sense."

Ski-fields are having a record season because fewer Kiwis are going overseas for holidays and Australians are favouring New Zealand fields over their own.

Christchurch & Canterbury Tourism chief executive Christine Prince said having two large commercial ski-fields in the region would boost tourism.

"For us to be more competitive, to be offering more direct ski product against Queenstown, would be fantastic," she said.

"We have a far greater frequency of flights, we're cheaper and more accessible."

Destination Queenstown chief executive Stephen Pahl played down suggestions of rivalry with Canterbury.

"We've never taken the position that we're competing with anyone else," he said. "Queenstown holds a unique position in the ski market and I think we'll retain that."

Plans for what Sleigh called a small, carbon-neutral alpine village at Porter Heights hinge on a proposed land swap with the Department of Conservation (DOC).

Porters is on a perpetual lease from the department, but for accommodation to be built, investors will want the land to be freehold.

Blackfish proposes swapping 15ha adjoining the Lords Bush Scenic Reserve near Springfield for 21ha of DOC-owned land on the Porters access road.

Sleigh said the first step in the plan was to gain approval for the land acquisition and to get resource consents from the Selwyn District Council and Environment Canterbury.

"We hope to have that resolved fairly soon - a matter of months."

The village would operate year-round as a centre for other activities, such as tramping and mountainbiking.

Sleigh told the Canterbury-Aoraki Conservation Board last week that his company would set up an environmental restoration trust and assume financial and operational responsibility for restoring the former farmland near Lords Bush.

Sleigh told The Press he hoped work could start in two or three years.

"I think the proposition is compelling. With our increasing closeness with Australia, it's potentially not a bad time."

Redeveloping the ski-field would cost about $40m, while accommodation would be "much more", at a total of between $200m and $300m, he said.

Get some big mountain action at Porters
Porters ski area is closest ski field to Christchurch. It’s one of the few places in New Zealand that offers genuine big mountain skiing and riding accessed from a lift. Porter’s 3 Tbars will take you up a long valley that forks to the left before delivering you to a ridge with access to some big steep faces.

Turn left from the Tbar and you will find yourself at the top of the biggest lift accessed single run in the southern hemisphere.

Big Mama is steep and often deep and it sure gets the legs burning once you have nailed the long fall line it offers.

620 odd vertical metres in one run later and you are at the bottom trying to catch your breath.

Head up again and turn right make the traverse and then the climb and you will find yourself above an even bigger face.

Bluff Face truly has a big mountain feeling to it especially if you make the climb although those less game can traverse lower and get into the face. If you make the climb the approach across the tops after the superb views is easy but the upper face is accessed through some good and reasonably gnarly chutes.

Once on this huge and steep face the people below this look very puny and you realise just how massive this face is 700ms + of vertical (if you made the short climb to the top). Interestingly it looks no where near as big from below.

The author skied this face in 70cm’s of fresh powder once and I recall making dozens of turns and stopping for a rest to find I had hardly descended at all and there was plenty more on offer.

These are just 2 examples of how superb porters can be when it has good snow cover. And in 2009 it has exactly that. Get there if you can the spring corn snow can be superb! Porters is wicked.

Local ski fields and status Spring conditions around the region with wicked snow bases still Mount Hutt Just over 1 hour from Christchurch and 25 minutes from Methven. Status: Closing 18 October Snowbase:1.2-1.5m ski vote & profile Snow report   Porter Heights Just over 1 hour from Christchurch. Status:Closing 4 October Snowbase:0.7-1.5m spring Snow report ski vote & profile Club Fields (Aka the hidden stashes) And there is plenty of powder around! Great conditions.   Mount Olympus 1.5 hours from Christchurch. Status:Closing 4 October Snowbase: 0.6-1.8m ski vote & profile Snow report   Craigieburn 1.5 hours from Christchurch. Status:Closing 4 October Snowbase: 0.1-1.8m spring ski vote & profile Snow report Mt Cheeseman 1.5 hours drive from Christchurch Status: Closing 4 October Snowbase: 0.53-1.13m ski vote & profile Snow report   Temple basin 1.5 - 2 hour drive from Christchurch Status: Open for 2009 season - still going Snowbase: 0.75-2m ski vote & profile Snow report Broken River 1.5 hours drive from Christchurch Status: Open for 2009 season Snowbase: 0.4-1.8m 2 weeks and weekends to go ski vote & profile Snow report Mount Hutt Canty's premium ski area had a primo season in 2008.

Methven New Zealand Methven is the home of Mount Hutt skiing. Base yourself there for the season and you can get quick access to snowboard or ski Mount Hutt. Methven is a small but friendly town with a vibrant night life. You can also base yourself here to ski the local club fields or the other Canterbury commercial field - Porter Heights. These fields are actually closer to Christchurch than Methven but at Powderhound we like ski towns! So we recommend Methven if you have a vehicle. If you just want to rip it up at Hutt the local mountain transport is affordable.   Mount Hutt can have some huge powder days!