Excitement is snowballing at Coronet Peak as the ski area gears up for the 35th Queenstown Winter Festival which opens this Friday, June 26.

As the festival’s mountain home, Coronet Peak will host a range of events with mountain bikes and dogs joining the skiers and riders on the snow.

Ski Area Manager Hamish McCrostie said mountain staff were looking forward to winter festival’s opening party.

“We’ve had such a great start to the season so far and we’re really looking forward to hosting a fantastic line up of festival events,” he said. “Skiers and riders are enjoying superb conditions and we’re in great shape to welcome the community and our visitors for fun, social and sporting events.”

Coronet Peak’s festival celebrations get underway with the Browns Mountain Bikes on Snow event on Saturday, followed by a breakfast like no other on Monday. The Media Suite Bruce Grant Youth Trust Charity Breakfast provides an early social and humorous start to the day in the name of a good cause. After breakfast, skiers can head for the snow to take part in the Ski Through the Decades event.

Fitness conscious early birds will love the Skin to the Summit starting at 6.30am on Saturday (July 4) while those into fully mad cap fun should check out the Speight’s Dog Derby on Thursday (July 2) and the Grabaseat Mountain Mayhem on Saturday (July 4) with ever popular events such as Suitcase Race and Dash for Cash.

Night Skiing for the 09 winter season kicks off on Friday July 3 as part of the mountain party that is the Grabaseat Mountain Mayhem and skiing and riding under lights will also be on offer on Saturday July 4.

The epic Queenstown Winter Festival Rail Jam (July 5) will see Queenstown’s hottest snowboarders and skiers performing top tricks under the watchful eyes of a buzzing crowd and stoked up by top DJs. The party doesn’t stop there because the rail jam turns into the Festival Closing Party, where an adrenalin-pumping aerobatics and parapenting display will close the festival in style.

“The festival is a long running celebration of the start of winter for us and a time when we welcome skiers and non skiers alike to the mountain to enjoy the lighter side of winter,” said Mr McCrostie.

Oh yusss, Ima flying to Invers and driving to QTown tomorrow.
All this warm weather up here is gettting me down, heading out for lunch in a short sleeved shirt is becoming tiresome so thought it was time to get amongst the cold for a change

Especially looking forward to checking out the bike on snow on Saturday

I'm wondering what my bikes gona be like on snow? No doubt fun will be on the agenda!!!