 Poster: A snowHead
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Wouldn’t be surprised if vail buy it.
Been rumoured for a while and a no snow year after 2 of covid was the final nail in the coffin.
Must suck for all the life pass holders.
There’s been loads of JAFAS down south this winter.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Real shame
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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| hang11 wrote: |
Wouldn’t be surprised if vail buy it.
Been rumoured for a while and a no snow year after 2 of covid was the final nail in the coffin.
Must suck for all the life pass holders.
There’s been loads of JAFAS down south this winter. |
I do love the fact that even for a country as small and friendly as NZ the denizens of the capital city can still attract appropriate contempt presumably for their flashy international airs and graces.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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We are even more derogatory about Ozzie’s
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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| hang11 wrote: |
Wouldn’t be surprised if vail buy it.
Been rumoured for a while and a no snow year after 2 of covid was the final nail in the coffin.
Must suck for all the life pass holders.
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When I was there a few years ago I seem to remember talking to some locals and they were saying that the new lift they had not long built on the Turoa side had been financed by selling lifetime season passes and they thought this might become a problem in later years.
On the other hand I might have completely understood. 
Hope they get it sorted.
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The ownership model is a bit like a community trust I think so it’s really difficult for them to access more traditional types of funding, or to bring in external investors.
Potentially a risky buy given that it’s on an active volcano. The La Niña impact this year is really unusual.
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@Dave of the Marmottes, my JAFA friends call each other JAFAs and it is always said and meant in a friendly fashion. It isn’t that derogatory, more tongue in cheek - love their self-deprecating humour.
Ozzies on the other hand… love ‘em too
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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Sad about Ruapehu
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Yes, very. I spent a day there, years ago, pre-volcano, when driving from Auckland to Wellington, in theory for work. With a colleague who had never skied, and we had no suitable clothes. We went up in a bus, friendly people shared some sun cream, we rented warm clothes and walking boots and had a coffee, then I persuaded my colleague that we should rent some skis and try them out on the very nice beginner area with rope tow. The next day, at an official meeting in Wellington, I enjoyed feeling the very stiff muscle in my left arm, from so many trips up the rope tow. I was very impressed with the place.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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@Dave of the Marmottes, Auckland isn’t the capital city either.
That’s Wellington. Populated by politicians whose existence is largely ignored on the mainland
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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| hang11 wrote: |
| @Dave of the Marmottes, Auckland isn’t the capital city. … |
But it should be. 
Will be a real shame if Ruapehu doesn’t continue in some form. Our kids, bar one aberration to Mt Hutt, learned to ski there.
Plus all those businesses in Turoa and National Park Village that rely on the ski fields and their customers will really suffer.
I was surprised when they recently invested in the gondola at Whakapapa. Cant have been cheap, and I guess bad timing.
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@ster, A fair bit of government money went into that gondola.
I’m sure it will still operate just under different ownership, with a reset on debt levels and some out of pocket creditors.
It would be a disaster for the local economy if it wasn’t operating. There’s not a whole lot else around there.
And if Auckland became capital city the next step would be independence for the mainland 
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You know it makes sense.
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| hang11 wrote: |
@Dave of the Marmottes, Auckland isn’t the capital city either.
That’s Wellington. Populated by politicians whose existence is largely ignored on the mainland |
Fair point - my attention letting me down in my dotage. I was mainly just thrilled at remembering what JAFA stood for.
Sounds like poo-poo news but presumably will get resurrected in some form albeit perhaps not as skier friendly. With the return of international tourism there must be some business in summer lift rides erc?
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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| Dave of the Marmottes wrote: |
| With the return of international tourism there must be some business in summer lift rides erc? |
I never thought Ruapehu fields were much of a summer destination. There is the Tongariro crossing nearby but didn’t think much went on on the fields in summer, but may have changed a bit with the new gondola.
Nor did many international tourist head there for skiing, most would head for the better known SI resorts. There would be the tourist buses that would stop on their way to/from Auckland/Wellington and the punters would get out for a walk on snow and a few sledge rides, but nothing big.
So mostly the domestic market and that would be from Auckland in school holidays and we would head down for the odd weekend when the weather forecast looked good.
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Poster: A snowHead
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@ster, It's a long time since I visited but I remember staying in Taupo but saving any attempted skiing til Christchurch and Queenstown. Taupo felt a lot like an outdoors orientated tourist town (and I know it is not Ruapehu) and like you say both are in driving distance of Auckland so it feels like a non-existant snow season is the root issue. Those photos look a lot like one of my recurring nightmares about a ski trip.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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There was great snow when I went. We'd been driving Auckland - Wellington and heard the snow reports on FM radio. We could just see Ruapehu in the distance, rising above the rolling, sheep-filled hills, and I persuaded my colleage that we simply had to take a detour.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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So it seems that Turoa and Whakapapa ski fields are now separately owned and run ski areas, so the season passes are separate and don’t allow cross over except for a couple of gratis day passes. I guess the old RAL life time pass holders are going to get screwed for more money.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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Any form of boat ownership:
A hole in the water into which you pour money.
Anything to do with owning part of the ski infrastructure:
Money which melts in front of your eyes
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You'll need to Register first of course.
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The bigger cost is leaving ruapehu closed. All the infrastructure would have to be removed from the mountain and everything made good. The government would be carrying that very expensive can. Obviously a significant economic impact on the surrounding communities as well.
The whole life pass model is one of the reasons it fell over, and the life pass holders as a majority group of creditors have got in the way of a number of proposed solutions, so maybe not too much sympathy should be directed their way.
Good to see it re opening anyway. Hopefully the new management are successful.
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| hang11 wrote: |
The whole life pass model is one of the reasons it fell over, and the life pass holders as a majority group of creditors have got in the way of a number of proposed solutions, so maybe not too much sympathy should be directed their way.
Good to see it re opening anyway. Hopefully the new management are successful. |
Thats as may be but it took two to tango, RAL were happy to take their money for the life passes at the time for short term cash no matter how stupid their model was.
But as you say a lot of people rely on the slopes for a living so hopefully it will do well as keep big scale skiing in the North Island.
Is it community ownership do you know, and did the govt throw in any sweeteners?
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Not community ownership. Govt have thrown a few sweeteners to keep it going but from what I understand there’s a fairly short lease in place which will need to be looked at. I think it’s probably a bit of a band aid situation at the moment to keep things moving as they work through a more long term solution.
Recent change of government will definitely be a good thing for them though. The economic impact on local communities would be a massive political fail, and the cost of make good will be a huge issue that everyone will be keen to avoid.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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Not sure the life pass holders have much blame, though I’ve been following this from
Afar.
They did after all pay for a lot of the infrastructure, and if it’s a terrible season they don’t get to ski much, vs with debt funded infrastructure (like the Sky Waka), throw in a run of poor seasons and boom, couldn’t service the debt, game over!
Obviously there’s substantial differences, but the similarities to the poo-poo show on CairnGorm strike a chord. MBIE seems to behave an awful lot like HIE!
In both cases a non profit distributing company owned/run by a charitable/members trust had run the ski area since inception with non debt financing of infrastructure over decades. Along comes government enterprise agency decreeing a big massive grand sight seeing scheme is required that’s way beyond the financial capacity of the operating company.
Pray the Sky Waka was build better than the dysfunctional allergic to snow broken funicular on CairnGorm.
As an aside if I was a RAL life pass holder, I’d be raging at the receivers / MBIE - quite clearly the receivers overruling the liquidators and RAL to dishonour life passes on Whakapapa this coming season while using the RAL concession to trade was a nod and a wink sweetener to Pure Turoa. Receivers don’t have to honour pre-existing contracts, but this seems to loading the dice in favour of PT in a potentially anti-competitive stitch up.
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Receivers have a clear legal obligation to deliver the best ultimate return to creditors.
That would be what is behind any decisions on life passes.
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