Apologies for the lack of updates over the last few days. I’m in New Zealand covering the Winter Games (more posts on that to come very soon) and it’s been hectic. Today I went up to check out The Remarkables to have a chat with their park crew, check out what they’re doing and look at a few other innovations going on up there. First up, for those that haven’t been before, I’ll give you an overview. The mountain is less than 40 minutes drive from Queenstown up a spectacular mountain road. The hill is aimed primarily at terrain parks but is also really strong on the beginner to intermediate runs (several of the harder runs were reshaped last year to bring them back to blue/green). The mountain supports riders like Nick Hyne through their team program and has a really active crew working in the park.
As you can see in the photos above, they have a tonne going on. They have three jump lines (small, medium and large) with varying boxes and rails which continue most of the way down the main run. Each of the jump lines were getting used the whole day and the beginner park was packed – awesome to see so many crew getting into it. They have Burton’s ‘The Stash’ up here as well – a few of the features weren’t in operation at the moment because there wasn’t enough snow. I didn’t actually get to cruise through there but I’m shooting back up later in the week so I’ll take a look then.
One of the best things about the Remarks is their new ticketing and lift systems. They issue RFID cards which can be used at The Remarkables, Coronet Peak and Mt. Hutt. The cards can sit in your pocket and they open the gates infront of each lift for you to cruise through. The card lasts forever and you top the card up with lift passes online. This means there’s no more 40 minute wait in a ticket queue. In addition, you can set a profile against the card which keeps a record of the number of runs you have done, the vertical meters you have dropped and more. You can add friends to your profile and compare data as well as there being a table of the all time highest number of runs in a day, over the months, etc. If you need to rent equipment, you only need to go through measurements once – the card keeps a record of what you have so that the gear can be reissued quickly in the future when you go back for another day. The last time I rode Buller it took nearly 45 minutes to get my ticket sorted – with the car park for the Remarks positioned at the base of two lifts and this card system, you can drive up and be riding in 5 minutes. Awesome.
The last thing to note is the prices – they do a full day pass for $91. Considering the amount of accessible terrain and the facilities, it’s pretty reasonably priced. But in addition to that, they do afternoon passes (from 12.30pm) for $62. They have dedicated beginner passes for $45 to encourage more crew to get into it which s great!
For more info on the mountain, hit their site here or head over to newzealand.com.
