Ruapehu Skifields Stakeholders Association representatives say life pass holders are “miffed” and turning away from the slopes this season. 

In addition, less snow, a restrained economy and uncertainty have meant less willingness by domestic visitors to splash out money on a ski trip. 

Life passes sold for about $3950 by Ruapehu Alpine Lifts (RAL) can no longer be used on the Whakapapa or Tūroa skifields, following the 70-year skifields’ operator’s liquidation. 

In April, Pure Tūroa Limited was granted a 10-year concession to operate the skifield near Ohakune. 

Visit Ruapehu's Jo Kennedy says the season is not over yet and spring skiing is normally some of the best on Mt Ruapehu. 

Pure Tūroa offered life pass holders a heavily discounted three-season multipass at the beginning of the 2024 season. 

RAL receivers Calibre Partners, who are in control of the Whakapapa business, offered life pass holders a 30% discount on all 2024 season pass prices. 

Visit Ruapehu tourism general manager Jo Kennedy said she had observed lots of international visitors heading to the slopes and people experiencing snow for the first time. 

“In the town, the weekend just gone, you couldn’t get a seat in the cafe, people are enjoying the warm weather – albeit at the moment the snow’s taking a bit of a bashing from that.” 

Jason Platt, a former chairman of the Ruapehu Skifields Stakeholders Association (RSSA), said the estimated 14,000 life pass holders who typically skied even in marginal snow seasons were not coming to the mountain this year. 

“The majority of life pass holders have had a very sour taste left in their mouth and are turning away from the mountain in droves,” Platt said. 

Calibre Partners executive director Martin Burrows said they acknowledged the difficult situation life pass holders had been left in following the insolvency of RAL. 

“However, the financial position and performance of the Whakapapa business is a critical element of its ability to survive over the longer term,” Burrows said. 

“Accordingly, revenue needs to be generated from all mountain users. 

“To this end, for the 2024 season, life pass holders were offered a discount on season passes but their life pass will not entitle them to use the Whakapapa skifield.” 

RSSA committee member Sam Clarkson said life pass holders paid in good faith to receive the service, and since 2000 had contributed $45 million to the mountain. 

“That’s a heck of a lot of money,” Clarkson said. 

“It’s a poor snow year and the economy is tight, but the bigger picture is that the life pass holders had already paid for their passes and so that would have given them more money to come skiing anyway and pay for accommodation. 

“It’s economic activity that is now not happening.” 

Pure Tūroa (PTL) spokeswoman Jess Till said their offer to life pass holders was well received and had a good uptake. 

“We have seen excellent utilisation this season,” Till said. 

“It is not the place of Pure Tūroa to comment on how Ruapehu Alpine Lifts [in receivership] treated life pass holders as PTL is a separate company to RAL.” 

Clarkson said life pass holders were not expecting to ski for free in the future, but there should have been further negotiations to determine the amount users would be willing to pay to renew their passes. 

“Kiwis have a pretty good sense of right and wrong, and the life pass holders are miffed that they didn’t do anything wrong and yet here they are, the ones being cast aside.” 

Platt said on any given day, about 10% of skiers on the mountain were life pass holders. 

Kennedy said she had seen a lot of the online rhetoric around life pass holders and “some were happy and some weren’t”. 

“Every one of them is in very different circumstances; obviously some of them have poured a lot of money into their life passes and now they can’t use them, which would be devastating.” 

She said the usage of life passes was never 100% each season. 

“There are people that are feeling it but, at the end of the day, if there was two metres of snow, I can guarantee we would have had a great season regardless of any of the politics going on. 

“The season’s not over yet and spring skiing is normally some of the best on Ruapehu.” 

Platt said he disputed the idea that life pass holders were “wealthy people from Auckland”; they were some of the most passionate mountain users who had invested heavily in Mt Ruapehu’s ski infrastructure. 

“They’re everything from families and farmers to accountants – it is a whole gambit of people.” 

Kennedy said the skifield operators had done everything they could to open this season by making snow and working hard to carve out tracks. 

The uncertainty surrounding the future of the Whakapapa skifield on the mountain came at “a really tough time” with the Ruapehu pulp mills and sawmills run by Winstone Pulp proposed to shut down. 

It had impacted just about everybody in town, she said. 

“Everybody knows somebody or is married to somebody, and 50% of the staff here have got partners who work in the mill. 

“We’re all very worried about that.” 

Earlier this season, Ruapehu Mayor Weston Kirton said negotiations were ongoing to determine the future of the Whakapapa skifield. 

“You can’t underestimate the seriousness of not having a skifield on the Whakapapa side, and the Government has been quite clear so far that there’s no more money to prop it up after Christmas,” Kirton said. 

“We’re waiting with some anxiety for that outcome.” 

Eva de Jong is a reporter for the Whanganui Chronicle covering general news stories. She began as a reporter in 2023.