While the winter season has started a little slowly for visitors to the Tongariro National Park and Central Plateau ski areas, Department of Conservation operations manager Libby O’Brien says last week’s storm has kicked 2026 off with a “bit of a bang.”
Matariki weekend was very busy, she says.
“Lots of visitors coming into the park, lots of people wanting to see and touch snow. And then this weekend just been has been really popular as well. The ski fields were closed on Saturday so that they could rebuild trails as the snow was falling… And then we had a bumper day Sunday (July 26) and lots of happy smiley people up there again today because it's a bluebird one.”
The ski field teams on both sides of Mount Ruapehu had done a good job, O’Brien says.
“To be able to get things up and running for everybody to get up the mountain…. So big ups to those guys putting in the hard mahi.”
The snow – not the typical Ruapehu dry powder – was holding nicely, she says.
“We're all very lucky, those of us who like being on the snow or near the snow… and there's another storm coming. So we’re looking forward to see what happens with that storm at the end of the week.”
