Skiers were carving turns at Coronet Peak over the long weekend, weeks ahead of the field’s usual June start, after New Zealand’s South Island switched on its first snow factory and guaranteed an early opening regardless of the weather.
The Queenstown ski area, run by NZSki, opened on Friday 29 May, the same day the Whakapapa field reopened on the slopes of Mount Ruapehu in the North Island. For Coronet Peak it marked one of the earliest openings in its history, made possible by a 2 million dollar machine that has been quietly turning water into snow nearly around the clock for about a month.
The snow factory is a first for the South Island. Unlike conventional snow guns, which need freezing air to work, the closed-circuit system freezes water and turns it into snow in any weather, even when the temperature climbs to 20 degrees. It uses no chemical additives, runs on electricity, and can produce up to 200 cubic metres of snow a day while drawing as much as 96,000 litres of water. The result, as the machine has churned away through autumn, has been the steady build-up of what staff describe as massive piles of ice crystals, spread across the lower slopes to give beginners and families somewhere reliable to start.
Ski area manager Nigel Kerr said the technology had changed the economics of the season completely. He told 1News the snow factory had “turned Coronet Peak from a four to six week a year option into a 20 week a year option”. This season the field plans to stay open from late May right through to early October, roughly 20 weeks of skiing where the bottom of the mountain once depended entirely on whether nature delivered.
That certainty matters for more than the snow lovers. Kerr said the early start let the field train about 40 staff sooner and hand them more work, and he framed the opening as a signal to the wider district. “Having guaranteed snow so early in the season sends a strong message that Queenstown is ready to welcome our winter visitors,” he said in comments reported by the Otago Daily Times. “Plus, moving the start ahead of our normal June opening date will also have a huge positive impact on our staff and other businesses in town.”
The machine sits alongside an already formidable snowmaking operation. Coronet Peak runs around 230 snow guns, more than any other ski area in the Southern Hemisphere, and NZSki has kept investing in newer and more efficient gear. Chief executive Paul Anderson said the latest generation of guns was far cheaper to run than the equipment installed a decade or more ago. “The snow guns we’re now installing are about five times more efficient than the ones we installed 10 to 15 years ago, and that’s just getting better and better and more reliable, cheaper to run, using less water,” Anderson said.
The snow factory is the centrepiece of a 4 million dollar capital works programme at the field this year. Beyond simply opening early, it has allowed the resort to lay out lower learner slopes, a dedicated snow play area with tubing, and a separate learner slope for children, all of it built on manufactured snow that does not melt away in a warm snap. For a mountain whose lower terrain has always been the most weather-dependent, that is a meaningful change.
The early opening has also given confidence to the organisers of a new Queenstown winter festival, who have committed to outdoor events including a rail jam in the heart of the town centre, knowing the snow will be there to truck in. It is the kind of certainty that has been hard to come by as the climate grows less predictable, and the technology is being watched closely across the country. At Whakapapa, where snow has been famously fickle in recent winters, representative Travis Donoghue said the gear “is going to really go some way to offsetting that climate variability”.
The investment comes off the back of a strong year for the southern fields. NZSki’s 2025 season saw visitor numbers climb about 7 percent, from 686,000 to 733,000, with Australian visitors leading the charge, up 31 percent year on year to around 176,000. A reliable late May opening, rather than a nervous wait for the first natural dump, gives the operators a head start on selling those early-season trips and gives the cafes, rental shops and accommodation in Queenstown an extra few weeks of winter trade.
For now, the immediate winners are the families and first-timers heading up the Coronet Peak access road this long weekend to find a groomed white surface waiting, whatever the forecast says. The mountain has skied to nature’s tune for generations. This winter, for the first time in the South Island, the snow is being made to order.
Are you heading to the slopes early this year, and do you think manufactured snow takes anything away from the experience? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job π
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