Wakatipu High School pupils Jano Le Page, Kennishii Palmer, Mace Korani and Flyn Cashmereid could be seen smiling ear to ear in the countdown to the opening moments of Queenstown’s second skifield on Saturday morning.
The Arrowtown locals were awarded special T-shirts for their efforts.
“We woke up at five o'clock in the morning and have been out here since. Now we’re just waiting for the chair lift to open — should be good,” Flyn said.
Tim Blackwood had travelled from Dunedin to arrive in time for the lifts to start at 9am.
“Pretty stoked just to be here actually, we are pretty lucky in New Zealand. There's a lot of stuff going on the world right now so I feel pretty blessed to be able to come up here and go snowboarding,’’ he said.
Skifield manager Ross Lawrence said despite some high cloud, the snow was “on our side”.
“Really excited ... the crowds are starting to arrive so really impressed with that — great to be open.”
“With the numbers as positive as they are, and the school holidays right on us, we are ready for some action and it should be pretty busy.”
As of Saturday morning, about 30cm of snow sat at the resort’s base with 15cm falling in the previous seven days.
NZSki chief executive Paul Anderson said more snow was set to arrive for the field in the coming week.
“A really busy couple of weeks coming ahead, the hotels are kind of somewhere between 60 and 85% booked. So that's the Kiwis coming out to play,’’ Mr Anderson said.
The Remarkables is open daily through the school holidays until July 19, then weekends only.
A seven-day opening will resume for the September school holidays.
