Cardrona Alpine Resort opened its lifts for the 2026 season on Friday, ending weeks of waiting that left one of the country’s busiest skifields staring at brown slopes well past its usual start date. The opening came only after a cold southerly finally pushed across the South Island on Wednesday and Thursday, dropping enough snow on the Wānaka mountain for the resort to switch on its learner carpets and the McDougall’s Chondola.
The mountain reported about 10 centimetres of snow in 24 hours, including 4 centimetres overnight, with the temperature falling to minus 6 degrees. That was the kind of cold the resort had been chasing for most of June. For weeks the snowmaking guns had struggled to run, and the natural snow that did arrive often came as rain. Cardrona has been frank that the early weeks of winter are leaning heavily on machine made snow rather than the real thing, telling followers its snow guns were “cranking” once the temperature finally dropped, with the latest conditions posted to the resort’s snow report.
This first day is a limited affair. Skiers and snowboarders have access to the learner area, while everyone else can ride the chondola for sightseeing, wander the snow play zones and look at a few early terrain park rails and boxes. A full opening across the wider mountain still depends on more consistent cold and more snow, which is why the resort has kept its language careful and avoided promising a big day.
Cardrona is not alone in its slow start. The 2026 season has been one of the latest in years for the South Island, where most of the big commercial fields normally open in the third week of June. Paul Anderson, chief executive of NZSki, which runs Coronet Peak, The Remarkables and Mt Hutt, told media the timing this year had slipped well past the usual window. “It’s gone later than previous years. Normally, we get open somewhere between the 18th and 20th of June,” he said.
Coronet Peak, just outside Queenstown, has been the exception. It managed to open on a small footprint on 13 June by leaning hard on snowmaking, running learner lanes and a sliding lane that have stayed busy even with very little terrain on offer. Mt Hutt in Canterbury, often the first major field to open, has been pushed back repeatedly and was eyeing Saturday 28 June, with forecasters tipping up to 20 centimetres of fresh snow from the same southerly system. The Remarkables had yet to lock in a firm date but said it was growing more optimistic as the colder air arrived.
Cardrona’s sister mountain, Treble Cone, has also had to wait. The resort had been training staff and watching the forecast, holding off until colder temperatures could give it a workable base. Smaller club and commercial fields told a similar story, with Roundhill near Lake Tekapo among those lining up late June openings rather than the earlier dates skiers are used to seeing.
Laura Hedley, the chief mountains officer at Cardrona and Treble Cone, summed up the mood that has run through the season. “It’s been a slower start to winter than we’d hoped,” she said. The comment will ring true for anyone who has watched the webcams through June and seen tussock where there should be powder.
Forecasters have linked the slow build to a strong El Niño pattern developing in the Pacific, which they have warned could shape the rest of the winter. El Niño years often bring more south westerly winds to the South Island, which can mean good snow on the western ranges but also longer warm spells in between. The early part of this season has delivered the warm spells without much of the snow, leaving resort operators dependent on short cold windows to make up the difference. The same forecast has the eastern districts bracing for a dry stretch later in the year.
The delays carry a real cost beyond frustrated skiers. Wānaka and Queenstown lean on the snow season to fill hotels, restaurants and rental shops through the coldest months, and a late opening squeezes that window. Operators have said bookings were strong earlier in the year but softened as the snow stayed away, with many visitors holding off until they could be sure the mountains would actually be running. The expectation now is that demand will jump once the major fields are properly open and the school holidays arrive.
For the workers who staff the lifts, cafes and ski schools, a late start also means a shorter run of paid days at the front of the season. Many are seasonal staff who plan their year around the winter, and every week of delay trims the wages on offer before the busy July period.
There is still plenty of winter left to turn things around. A single big storm can transform a thin base into a deep one within days, and the resorts have been quick to point out that snowmaking has at least kept them ready to pounce when the cold arrives. Cardrona’s opening, modest as it is, is the first real sign that the season has finally started to move. Whether the mountains can build the kind of base that keeps them open through to spring will depend on how many more of those cold southerlies push through over the coming weeks.
For now, the message from the slopes is one of cautious relief. The guns are running, the first skiers are out and the long wait for snow has, at last, eased.
Have you been up the mountain yet this season, or are you holding off until there is more snow on the ground? Tell us what the conditions have been like where you ski and join the conversation 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 🙂
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