Sunday, November 18, 2007

Treble Cone Ski Resort, New Zealand.

After Mt. Cook,, my siblings and I proceeded to Treble Cone, Wanaka Ski Resort. It has a skiable terrain of 550 hectares (1359 acres) with the summit height of 2100m (6888 ft). The terrain is divided into 3 different grades; 15% beginner, 45% intermediate and 40% advanced.

It had a total lift capacity of 6200 people per hour with 4 different types of lifts;
1) 1 Six seater high speed detachable chairlift
2) 1 double chair lift
3) 2 T-bars
4) 1 Platter

First of all, we went for a ski tour. Here we are at the top end of the six seater high speed detachable chairlift line. You can see a man behind us who just got off from a chair lift and he was all ready to ski.

Now we are at the advanced ski terrain and made way for those experts who came by so swiftly though we knew they would know how to avoid hurting us.


Then we toured the facility. Below is a bird's eye view of the ski equipment rental building, restaurant, etc. which we took while we were on the chair lift.

It was our first ski adventure and we had to enroll at the Ski and Snowboard School. Here we are waiting for our instructor.


We learned to balance ourselves, glide, turn, and stop. Then we pulled one of the T-bars and rode to a higher elevation for beginners.

My sister who was in front of me called for help as she wasn't sure whether she knew how to get off the T-bar safely. Our instructor took this picture of me at the same time. We must have driven him up the wall.

Now is the fun time. I was like a Humpty Dumpty who had too many great falls. I knew the the DOs and DON'Ts but knowing is different from doing. See how I progressed. This was how I started by maintaining a slight inverted V and learned to stop as well.


As I progressed, my feet are now parallel to each other.

I'm about to make a V, ready to crash and fall like the man on the right!

My sister did a good job balancing as she bent her knees and use her hips skillfully. My brother has always been above average in sports so we could not compare. I was the worst ski student. My instructor fell along with me at one time. Look how I was about to knock him down.

It was already 4:30pm and I was on my way to remove the glasses and return them along with all other ski equipment.

We wasted one rainny day and ran out of time. So we did not make it further south to Milford Sound. If you are planning to visit New Zealand, try not to miss Milford Sound.

Enjoy. If you like this post, please remember to use the bookmark button below to stumble, review, fave, or digg this post. Come back again as I will be putting up more pictures as I find the time. Thank you for visiting.

12 comments:

Hanafi Mohd Noor said...

Hi, never ski before i my life. Must be fun
www.hanafionline.com

Anonymous said...

Always wanted to ski, this is definitely one of those things I will have to do before I die... So how long does it take before you can ski by yourself ?

JesieBlogJourney said...

hanafi,
Thanks for dropping by. It is fun. NZ has so many ski resorts and it is a very beautiful country. Take only 1 day to ski. Try to take 3 weeks off and with careful planning, you can cover the major places of interest.

JesieBlogJourney said...

Ordnacin
Good question. We were at the ski resort for probably 4 to 5 hours. Our lesson was probably 2-3hours. My brother and sister were able ski without falling as beginners but I fell and crashed when I got too excited.
I am still a beginner and need more practice before I can ski by myself. 3-4 hours was good enough for my siblings but not me.
It's only fun if you try it.

Anonymous said...

Nice at least it's something you can pickup immediately and enjoy a on two day sked. BTW, how much does it cost including the rentals ?

Ordnacin @ http://www.happytripper.com

Anonymous said...

Thanks for dropping by my blog. Your travel blog is nice to read. I would like to learn skiing in the future too.

Anonymous said...

Hi Jesie,

Wah! I haven't tried skiiing yet but I will, just don't know when! ( actually I am a coward!). :D

Thanks for visiting my site!

Anonymous said...

I love those photos.

You seem to ski much better than me. I have only went ski once.

I hope to ski this year again! It's fun!

JesieBlogJourney said...

Ordnacin,
Goto http://www.treblecone.co.nz/Rentals/rentals.asp for the rental rate. When I was there a few years ago, we paid in New Zealand Dollars. I'm not sure whether this rate is in USD or NZD.

Jamy
You will love it. Go as a family and I'm sure JJ will love it tremendously.

Ann,
No worry mate - that's the Australian lingo! You're going to have an instructor. If you don't perform well, blame on the instructor and knock him down. He will have to help you up. It's really fun!

Terence,
Yes, it's fun. I saw the ski pictures of you and your wife and I thought you both were experts. With more practice, both of you can be our instructors. My husband is not good at it either.

We live in the US and we can ski in the same country every winter but we don't have much motivation to go now. I flew about 11 hours non-stop to NZ (excluding driving time) to ski for the first time.

JesieBlogJourney said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
JesieBlogJourney said...

Ordnacin
Sorry, the URL failed to come out correctly. The missing extension is rental/rental.asp.

If you still have trouble goto http://www.treblecone.co.nz and then click on the rates and specials deals.

Anonymous said...

Well done; this is a nice little story. We also love Treble Cone; it is our favourite ski area in NZ.