For people who want a more family friendly resort with a good range of terrain and awesome views, Mt Hutt is almost perfect. However, this particular trip was plagued by icy weather and the typical nz 'melt 'n freeze' cycle. It was also pretty busy because of school holidays. Below the snowline, Methven has a nice laid back atmosphere.

In general, for more adventurous skiers, you'd probably do better to head to one of the Club Fields to the west.

Very good amount of snow. Not a huge amount of runs for intemidiate riders. Got slightly bored after 4 days.

$300 for a season pass sounds like a bargain doesn't it? Well the entire population of Christchurch would tend to agree and with no limit on season passes if it is the weekend and there is a hint of sunshine, prepare to queue. Actually if it is really nice prepare to be turned away if you rock up late because the hill is "Full". It seems Mt Hutt suffers from a lack of competition, especially in the high speed chair stakes, the 6 person Summit 6 is the only high speed chair within day trip of Christchurch and it probably handles 80% of the traffic on this mountain. It does make bumping into friends easy though. The only other lift of note is the Tower Triple, an embarrassingly slow chair. With all levels being dumped at the top by the highly efficient chair there are limited ways down for the beginner but the more advanced have more choices. Staff were excellent at maximising the limited infrastructure they had, you rarely saw a 6 person chair without 6 people on it. The South Face and Tower were standout areas for the advanced rider with some fun chutes. Ski Patrol was excellent and the hill tried hard to keep things gradually opening up so there was always something to look forward to. The social media team seems to hype things a little. We headed to the mountain a couple of days after a dump with post on how "The Virgin Mile Will Be Open Today, Fresh Powder!!!" The problem is the hill the day before had done nothing to stop people dropping straight off the chair onto the main run (Fascination) dropping 5 metres then cutting a hard left all the way across the Virgin Mile face then dropping a line. The end result isn't Virgin. When the Virgin Mile actually open the face below was a chopped up mess of hundreds of tracks poaching the lines. More like Madonnas "Like A Virgin"...
Unfortunately Porters Hill et al in the nearby Canterbury Highlands offers good terrain and snow, if you willing to work really, really hard for it. If you want to sit on a chair that doesn't go at a snails pace and you're a Powderhound you're probably best to keep driving to some of the resorts around Queenstown area.

If you're living in Christchurch it's OK (although I'd prefer Porters) otherwise keep driving.

We visited Mt Hutt for 2 days mid-week at the end of August 2017. They had been having an amazing snow season and the snowbase was over 3m! We purposely visited during the week to try and avoid the large hoards that descend from Christchurch on the weekends. However of the 5 days that we stayed in Methven for, Hutt was only open for 2.

The access road is a well maintained dirt road, suitable for any vehicle, and is very tame compared with some of the crazier club field access roads. Parking was very convenient in the top car park as it wasn’t too busy. Our group was a mix of advanced, intermediate and beginners and Hutt catered to us all really well. Myself and the advanced skiers lapped the 6 seater chair (which is delightfully fast!) whilst the beginners could lap the slower quad chair and we would all meet up at the base of both lifts. The grooming team do an amazing job and you can get some serious carving turns done under the wide blue runs that run under the 6 seater.

Because of the excellent snow base, the entire mountain was open and it was great fun to explore. Some aspects were quite icy first thing in the morning, but as the sun came out they softened nicely. One of the days we visited was perfect bluebird and the views across the fields to the ocean were amazing. The weather did come in pretty hard on our other day and it was a white out for a few hours, not fun at all! As there is only one base area it can get busy, even mid-week and there were always lines for food and drinks.

Overall a great mountain for a few days, that caters well to all ability levels. However don’t always expect it to be open, there were days when all the other club fields were open but Hutt was closed. Definitely hire your own wheels so you have maximum flexibility.

Had a great five days skiing in late June-early July with husband and two teenage kids. Four days would have been enough as not all runs were open. Quad is very slow and Summit Six is really fast. Fascination-Broadway is a beautiful long run. Views are amazing, and it's an unpretentious and relaxed place to ski. Car park is very close to the bottom of the lifts. Handy for gear changes/food. We hired a 4WD and needed to put chains on it on one day only.

Mt Hutt has a maritime climate so snow quality varies enormously.

Having said that for an NZ ski area it offers a very satisfying skiing/boarding experience. It gets more snow more often than other south island resorts, it is streets ahead of other Canterbury ski fields in terms of facilities, accessibility, snow quality and length of season.

The runs are not of extreme length but longish and the terrain can be mellow or palm sweating steep and exposed.

Mt Hutt is fun, an adventure for beginners thro' experts and has a lot more to offer than you can immediately see.

Methven the town that supports Mt Hutt is a quaint country town with enough hotels, lodges, bars, pubs and restaurants to keep a traveller happy for at least a few weeks.
Mt Hutt is also in a lovely part of the world with terrific scenery and wonderful light.

I have had many trips to Mt Hutt over the years and whilst you can be unlucky with the conditions it rarely disappoints.

This a great mountain for skiing and snowboarding. So far this season there is over 2 meters of snow on the mountain.

Avoid like the plague on weekends and school holidays. Like any other NZ Ski operation this place can be expensive and crowded and you are not likely to get any of the fresh stuff due to the crowds. That being said the terrain can be alright but the lift setup makes the place a bit confusing to navigate around.

Fairly short runs and the high probability of shut roads, shut lifts shut everything due to wind (with many tales of people being stranded by the side of the road or in the base building not being unheard of). Definitely not my favourite mountain and I think the proximity to Christchurch and the advertising have made this place the place it now is.

For my money and time I would suggest people either keep driving or do the smart thing and head into Arthur's Pass. Porter's is a smaller but much better option for beginners who do not want to be crowded and hassled by more advanced skiers. Plus it's a lot cheaper because value Mt Hutt is not.

Mt Hutts advantages are that it's got a reasonable lift system, enough variety in the terrain to keep all skill levels happy for at least a few days, and it's close to Christchurch and Methven (easy access). It seems relatively kid and learner friendly.

Unfortunately, the day I visited the whole mountain resembled a concrete car park with a 1mm layer of icing sugar on top. The rescue helicopter came twice and airlifted 2 people off the mountain that day. The snow below the car park was a bit bare and the south face was barely rideable due to the conditions. I went thru the park a couple of times and it was not bad.

The rakaia saddle chutes were closed. That area certainly looked epic and if you like backcountry, worth a visit and is the one reason I would go back. The terrain impressed me and on a powder day it would go off, but I would choose to head to other nearby options on a powder day, particularly if it was a weather system from the west, as Mt Hutt doesn't really get much snow from these systems, just wind.

Which leads me onto the next item, the nickname... I guess it's not called "Mt Shut" for nothing. Of course, being NZ it's all alpine, so suffers in bad weather particularly from the wind. Everyone told me how gnarly the road was, but I honestly thought it wasn't that bad. It was an 8 lane superhighway compared to the Mt Olympus access road.

I went on a weekday and it wasn't too busy. I can imagine on a bluebird powder on the weekend it would get tracked out rather quickly.

All in all, good terrain and worth a day or 2 if you get good snow.

Visited Mt Hutt both 2009 & 2010.

Positives:
It's a great location with a variety of options for skiing. Given I'm of intermediate level it's a terrific field for me. Terrain is good, on-piste runs were well maintained etc. They run a good operation. I like the relaxed vibe of the place and the views across Canterbury Plains from the slopes are stunning.

Negatives:
Probably the biggest problem is the weather that can hit at short notice. Winds can be pretty intense on bad days. Last year the mountain was closed for 2 days when we arrived at Methven so we only got to ski a few days there.

This year we were one of the 1200 people caught overnight on the mountain early Aug. Can think of better ways to spend the night :-) That said, the Management and Staff did a brilliant job and really put in a terrific effort to make it as safe and comfortable as possible. We went back the next open day. Whilst a tad icy in spots, overall I had an excellent day's skiing.

I'd say it's a mountain that would suit either beginner or intermediate skiers and boarders. Some great advanced terrain (from what I could see) but ask me in a year or two for real feedback on that aspect...

Would I go back? Yep. I really like the place. On a good day it's a lot of fun. On a bad day you can still find some good skiing. As I mentioned above, weather is the main problem. But pick your day and you'll have a great time.