Cardrona Alpine Resort has been in preparation mode to welcome back international visitors as well as Kiwis for the 2022 snow sports season, in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic, with several innovations.

Cardrona and Treble Cone experience general manager Laura Hedley says they have continued to develop facilities and amenities to ensure their ongoing reputation as a field that caters to everyone, from beginners and families to Olympic and X Games athletes.

“Due to Covid-19 many people still haven’t had the opportunity to check out Willows which is New Zealand’s newest inbound terrain and is in the Soho Ski Area, on the southern face of Mt Cardrona, and made up of two big bowls with undulating intermediate terrain.”

“It has opened up 65 hectares of great skiing and snowboarding so we expect there will be plenty of avid snow enthusiasts ready to check it out this year.”

Laura says Cardrona has continued to invest in snowmaking with more snow making guns and water storage improvements ensuring greater reliability of snow.

“Sustainability initiatives are also a key focus and we encourage guests to catch a bus, carpool and use the Snowriders app to maximise the capacity in the mountain carparks. We have also assigned hitchhiking spots on the mountain access road.”

To reduce the carbon footprint at Cardrona a pack in and pack out programme has been implemented to encourage guests to be respectful of the amount of rubbish they create.

“We introduced this programme last year and it has been highly successful,” says Jen. “We no longer supply landfill bins at Cardrona and instead have various recycling and food scrap bins for guests to use. Our food and beverage outlets don’t sell anything that has packaging that needs to go to landfill.”

“Guests are welcome to bring their own lunch and snacks and we ask that they take any landfill rubbish home with them or better still pack a lunch with reusable, recyclable or compostable packaging.”