Day 6. With great powder, comes great responsibility.

Once again we awoke to the sound of rain this morning, however the weather report looked more favourable than previous days, so it was finally time to head back to Mt Hutt for some snow action! The pesky weather system from yesterday was still lingering, meaning conditions weren't ideal, but the kids were biting at the bit, and keen to head up, so onto the bus we went! 

The access road is winding and challenging at the best of times, but today snow and ice made it even more interesting. Robin stopped halfway up the mountain to fit the snow chains to the bus tyres, ably assisted by Miss Battoraro. Our unexpected pit stop allowed Mario to explain the story of Rocky, a local kiwi celebrity. The 15 tonne boulder had been dislodged during the 2011 earthquake in Christchurch and landed in someone’s bedroom. It was later auctioned off to raise funds for the earthquake relief fund and was purchased by NZSki and moved to Mt Hutt where he now looks over the Canterbury Plains. With chains fitted, it was time to continue our trip. As we climbed we were hoping to see blue skies appear, but alas the rain stuck around making for a very damp start to the day. After arriving, we had just enough time to fit in few warm up runs before our lessons began, though with such poor visibility we didn’t venture too far. As lessons progressed, it was clear that the extra time we’d spent practicing had certainly paid off! Everyone, even the least confident of us, seemed to be advancing in leaps and bounds!

After our lessons it was time to retreat to the cafeteria where many attempted to dry out a little, but the rest was short lived. It wasn’t long before jackets and gloves were back on again and we were hitting the slopes. The weather finally started to lift and it wasn’t long before conditions started to look up. Beginner boarders Moe, Adam, Will and Danette headed up on Highway 72 for the first time, led by Mario. They smashed it, with Adam and Will managing to naturally get their linking down pat, an impressive feat. Elsewhere on the mountain Operation Snowman 2.0 commenced with students keen to improve on their efforts from Day 3. Jess W and Farhan meticulously shaped and rounded snowballs during the construction phase, whilst Lauren and Sophie took some time out to try their hand at making snow angels. The end result was a vast improvement from our first mountain day, but we still think we can do better. Stay tuned for further developments.

This evening’s activities had us taking a group trip into Methven to Cinema Paradiso, the smallest cinema in New Zealand, with only 37 seats! We all packed in for our own personal screening of Logan Lucky. Quite a few laughs were had, though the ending had a few scratching their heads, making for some interesting conversations and hypothesising on the walk home.