Queenstown is the capital of adventure tourism in NZ and has the widest selection of crazy activities that I have ever seen in one place. At this time of year, it concentrates on winter sports, with four significant ski areas within reach (Coronet Peak, The Remarkables, Cardrona and Treble Cone). After the morning conference, we headed up to the Remarkables, where we all spent an hour snow tubing. This was entertaining, although to many of us it seemed like a bit of waste of valuable ski-resort time.
After the conference I stuck around in Queenstown with Ken, Tom and Amy for 5 days' snowboarding. I've been lucky enough to go to many of France's best ski resorts, as well as some American ones, so it's interesting to compare how New Zealand does things.
The biggest difference is scale. Most of these areas have two lifts, three at most. In comparison, Val d'Isère claims 94 on its website. Despite this, we didn't get bored. Many of the slopes were wide and over open terrain with no trees, so you could pick your own route down. It's also nice to get to know slopes well - where the jumps are, etc.
Getting to the resorts is different too - you have to drive through the valleys, before turning sharply uphill and ascending quickly to the snow-line. No ski-in-ski-out luxury here. The roads up are also mostly unsealed, which become entertainingly trecherous when you reach the snow. I am now an expert at the messy business of fitting and removing snow chains!
Of our 5 days, 3 had excellent conditions, with nightly fresh powder and sunshine. I don't know whether this is how it always works down there, but I was certainly impressed. The only dissapointment was our day at Treble Cone - many people had raved about it, but heavy wet snow and strong winds meant half the resort was closed and the rest wasn't much fun. It did seem to have potential though: huge open slopes, steep sections and loads of natural gullies. One for next time!
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