25 July, 2010 – Enjoying Powder at Roundhill

July 25th, 2010

The new rope tow has brought big mountain skiing to Roundhill.

Snow Journal | Camilla Stodart
Words | Chris Booth

New Zealand is famous for its legendary club fields and its antiquated, brutal lift system – the nut-cracker tow. Olympus, Temple Basin, Craigeburn and myriad other cooperatives have blown skiers’ minds and winched their wretched souls up pulleys for years and are equally as well known as Treble Cone or Mt Hutt.

But in the last decade a spawn of new fields, kind of like micro-resorts, have popped up throughout the South Island offering new off-piste possibilities. Roundhill mountain is one such place. Last Saturday Liberty/Oakley rider Simon Blondel and myself scored a brilliant day there after word it had received about 20cm of fresh the day before. Roundhill is one of the few ski areas that has good snowpack this winter, purely by random geographical chance i guess. NZ is flukey like that; it will be grassy and low-tide at one resort, and one hour away there will be a 2m base.

Roundhill is a funny little ski field, situated a mellow 35 minute drive from Lake Tekapo township, it has a brand new nut-cracker rope-tow that is the most ridiculous lift you have ever seen – its literally bruising. Called the Heritage Express Rope Tow, it is 1440m long with 632m vertical rise and gives access to the Two Thumb range and some of the best terrain in NZ. With chutes, gullies and lots of steep stuff and a top elevation of 2133m. The Heritage Express has brought big mountain skiing and riding to this otherwise family-oriented ski area.

There’s definitely some potential over the back side if you’re into golfing, with some nice little couloirs that give on to rolling faces. Although for neutrality’s sake it must be said that the best accessible terrain, that is, the back side of the mountain, gets sun-drenched throughout the day, spoiling the fresh snow. On the front side of the mountain the snow remains colder but there are no terrain features – just a big, round, hill. Having said this, I will definitely be going back.

See the forecast for Roundhill here

The Heritage Express Rope Tow.

Chris Booth.

Simon Blondel hooking a big left hander.

The spectacular view.

The Roundhill facilities.

Night sky.

The spectacular views again.

Round Hill forecasts,
snow reports and
live snow cams.