UPDATE: Buller Pre-Season Update – Snowmaking & Summer Grooming

UPDATE: Saturday 11:30am – just got this in an SMS from the hill:

Cow camp got slashed as did all of hogs back plug hole sun valley fall line and some work down the bottom of fed boulders etc. Snowmaking work is all done. Pressurising the lines tomorrow in the hope to make Tuesday.

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After the call-out I made in my previous post I just got a phone call from someone currently up at Buller with a few updates on what’s going on up there at the moment.

The final touches are still being put on the new snowmaking areas, the York automated guns which have proven to be a raging success on Shakey Knees and Summit have now been installed in a few key areas on the mountain. Most notably they are on the top of Wombat, which previously had to rely on the tower mounted fan guns that were shared with Little Buller Spur, and also on Family Run and Chute. It is expected that the final work will be completed by the weekend, in time for the next storm which looks like hitting on Sunday.

At this stage it looks like rain at first, and an uncertain amount of snow to follow. Keep an eye on Jane’s Weather for her daily updates which include an Alpine forecast, and once the system hits an ‘Obervations’ thread will be started on the ski.com.au Weather Forum providing live updates from around the mountains.

The other big news that I received from the caller was the summer grooming that had been performed. Things were getting pretty overgrown in my beloved Bull Run bowl, Hog’s Back and Sun Valley were becoming overrun with saplings which really detracted from the skiing on a couple of the best runs on the mountain. There was even talk of a guerilla summer grooming work weekend amongst the Buller regulars on the ski.com.au forums.

This is how it looked last year with a medium amount of snow:

Even the weekend after last year’s epic dump it was still overgrown:

So it’s good to hear that this has apparently been addressed. Another area that was sorely in need of attention was Cow Camp, I’ve asked the question and my contact will report back as to whether it has been cut back.