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Roads to the resorts

With the exception of Cardrona, New Zealand’s ski areas do not have on-mountain accommodation, which means that each day you must negotiate quite long dirt roads with hair-pin bends and - more often than not - little in the way of crash barriers to protect you from big drops.
 
Fatalities are rare but not unknown. The road up to Mount Hutt from Methven is probably the scariest, with the risk of high winds - as you meander towards the slopes - an additional hazard. The second half of the bleak 25km journey from Methven to Mount Hutt, with steep, exposed sections and unsettling drops, remains one of the more nerve-racking drives in the country.

And the last section of the 12 mile drive from Wanaka to Treble Cone, from Glendhu Bay, can also be a little hair-raising: building the road to the resort in 1976 was considered quite a feat. A gondola is being considered to make things a little easier. But in general, visitors should not expect massive European-style lift systems: a handful of strategically placed lifts usually provides plenty of variety.

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