Last day to buy your Earlybird Season Pass!

This is it...there's now less than 24 hours to go for our 2008 Earlybird Season Pass Campaign.

There's so much value packed into this one little pass: on-mountain discounts, south island ski area discounts, deals at northern hemisphere resorts and, of course, a whole season of skiing/riding at NZ's 2 largest ski areas. What more can we say...? Oh yeah...you also go in the draw to win a trip for 2 to Club Med Sahoro in Japan for 5 nights flying JAL!

Just one week to go for Earlybird Season Passes!

We've had snow!

The cold snap across the country at the weekend has brought us a dusting of early snow. The mountain is looking beautiful with it's winter white coat on and, while it's very early days yet, we'll take it as a good omen for a great 2008 season ahead.

Check out this photo taken yesterday from the Turoa side.

Season Passes on sale now!

Yep, it's already that time of year again. Earlybird Season Passes and Ultimate Passes are on sale now! For all the low-down on the awesome deals you get with your pass, plus info on the $10,000 trip you can win to Club Med Japan, click here.

Make sure you get your pass before 5pm 30 April as our famous Earlybird pass sale definitely ends then! 

2008 Season Passes

2008 Earlybird Season Passes and Ultimate Passes will go on sale from 1-30 April. From 1 April there will be a link directly from the home page of this site to season pass information and the online purchasing process. If you would like to receive email reminders so that you do not miss out on our great earlybird rates please subscribe to our email newsletter using the link toward the bottom of the home page. Season Pass prices for the 2008 season are:

The Ultimate Pass allows unlimited access to all lifts at Whakapapa, Turoa and Cardrona Ski Areas for the 2008 winter season. For standard lift pass rates for the 2008 season click here.

A tribute to a great mountaineer

Sadly, this morning New Zealand lost one of its greatest heroes, Sir Edmund Hillary. Along with the rest of the country, we mourn the loss of this great mountaineer, adventurer, humanitarian and iconic New Zealander.

Mt Ruapehu has had a long standing relationship with Sir Edmund Hillary. He opened the Rock Garden single-seater chairlift on Mt Ruapehu in 1954; just one year after he "knocked off" Everest. It was the first chairlift in New Zealand and opened up the mountain world for sighsteers for the first time. We are honoured to have had such an icon of the mountains and our country take a role in our company's history.

Summer operations open 15 December

Winter may be over but that doesn't mean you can't still come and enjoy the stunning scenery at Ruapehu. From 15 December Whakapapa will be open for sightseeing chairlift rides to New Zealand's highest cafe, Knoll Ridge. Lorenz's Cafe at the base area and Knoll Rige will both be open and the Vertical retail store at the base area will have lots of cool summer clothing, tramping equipment and souvenirs. You can hire tramping boots and wet-weather gear from Vertical and enjoy one of the self-guided walks over volcanic terrain or you can go on one of the spectacular guided crater walks where you'll find the best views and learn about the volcanic and cultural history of the mountain.

Check out our website over the coming week as we update it with summer activity information and pricing.

Thank you all for a great winter!

Well, it's a bit sad that the 2007 season has officially come to an end but it definitely finished on a high note. Turoa had two amazing days of fine weather at the weekend and around 2000 of you joined us to see the season off. Everyone was in good spirits, with the 10 minute queue for the High Noon Express becoming an opportune time for a snow-ball fight. And who minds waiting 10 minutes when the snow conditions are so good?! Judging from the number of chocolate bars you gave Johnny King from Maintenance, you appreciated his queue control skills.

We opened on a skeleteon staff of full-year employees and local helpers. Wal the Mechanic moved from fixing groomers to driving one and later joined Fred the Trail Manager and Karen from Finance to cook chips at the Giant Cafe. The Marketing team ran the barbeque on the Giant Cafe deck and, with the help of some local restaurateurs (including not-quite-mayor-of-Wellington, John McGrath), sold every last sausage, steak and chicken pattie on the mountain. Issy from Salomon spent the morning in Customer Services answering phones and Turoa Area Manager Chris Thrupp took on the role of Liftie at the bottom of the Movenpick.

Thank you all for your support this season. You may be interested to know that you helped us break a few records over the winter. We had a record day for Mt Ruapehu of over 12,000 visitors, a record day for Turoa of more than 6,000 people and also broke midweek visitor records and website user sessions reached 1.8 million. It's fantastic to see that so many of you are as passionate about skiing and riding Ruapehu as we are!

If you're heading this way over summer we'll have scenic chairlift rides operating at Whakapapa along with guided crater walks and Knoll Ridge and Lorenz's Cafes will be operating. There's also a possibility that we'll be offering rock-climbing on Meads Wall. Check out this site over coming weeks for more on that.

Turoa open this weekend weather permitting

Yes, the rumours are true. Turoa is opening this weekend if the weather allows it. The forecast is looking good for Saturday afternoon and all of Sunday, with snow for Friday night/Saturday morning.

Opening times will be 10am till 5pm on both Saturday and Sunday. Please note that the ski area will be running on a skeleton crew so there will be limited services running.

• The Alpine and Giant Cafes will be serving prepackaged food such as pies, chocolate bars and drinks. There will also be barbeques running if the weather permits.
• There will be machine-made coffee and hot chocolate (no espresso sorry)
• The Movenpick and High Noon Express chairs will run. There will not be any beginners' facilities or terrain park
• Rental equipment will be available as per normal
• Ski school will be running with a limited staff on a first come first served basis.

Spring ticket prices will apply. For day passes these are $60 for adults and $33 for youths (18 and under).

We look forward to seeing you!

Turoa to Open for Last Weekend if Fine

Turoa will open for the last weekend in October if the weather if fine. We'll operate the Movenpick for access to the High Noon Express. Check back for weather updates and opefully see you here.