Southern Snow

To say the 2011 ski season has been a challenge is to drastically understate the obvious.

The impending close of the ski season is not stopping the action at the Remarkables skifield, with the country's first snowboard-wakeboard crossover event and the Bikinis for Breast Cancer fundraiser both taking plave on Saturday.

A skier plunges backwards off a jump, rolls upside down twice and spins three times, then lands and gracefully glides off another jump into yet another aerial roll - or maybe splats in a puff of snow, legs akimbo, skis scattered far and wide.

Ohau Snow Fields will farewell winter this weekend before closing for the season on Monday night.

Treble Cone welcomed more than 80 young freestyle skiers and snowboarders to the mountain's free-ride terrain last weekend for the Pump Mini Mountain, a competition focusing on children 13 years and under.

Southern skifields received up to 20cm of snow on Tuesday, providing perfect spring skiing conditions on the mountains yesterday.

International students made their mark on this year's Uni Snow Games in Wanaka as competitors, volunteers, and event organisers.

Queenstown sisters Charlotte and Frances Newbold took sibling rivalry to a new level at the Uni Snow Games in Wanaka.

Ben Griffin scored a triple win at this year's Alpine National Ski Championships, defending his super G and giant slalom titles and adding the slalom title.

The University of Otago is keeping a firm grip on the Michael Forrestal Memorial Shield at the Uni Snow Sports in Wanaka this week, despite strong challenges from other South Island campuses.