Four to five metres of fresh snow has fallen at Mt Hutt Ski Area over the last two days. Photo / Supplied
Mt Hutt has had a dumping of fresh snow and ice as severe weather sweeps across the South Island.
Two to three months of rain has pelted Canterbury in the space of a few days in a deluge that has been labelled a one-in-100-year event.
Mt Hutt Ski Area manager James McKenzie said four to five metres of snow fell at the summit between yesterday and today.
About 40-50cm has also fallen at the base.
He said they were having access issues getting to the top of the mountain and took a helicopter up.
"It was pretty impressive, right up to the top of our big wind fence up there.
"The Hutt is pretty much buried in snow at the summit."
McKenzie said the snow at the summit is crusted with ice.
"There's a couple of places where the tail end of the storm really came in damp and icy.
"There's a lot of ice build-up on matted structures, that ice is up to half a metre, may be more, thick in some places. "
It's a pretty phenomenal sight at the top of the mountain, he said.
"There's a huge amount of ice growing out from any metal structure, the lift is caked with ice.
"It's an amazing scene. Huge mounds of snow everywhere. It's a really strange thing just seeing everything swallowed up by the snow."
McKenzie said in the base area, the snow is still quite soft but at the moment the mountain is not skiable.
"That ice layer needs to be broken up with groomers and we'll be mobilising our team pretty shortly to get out there and start preparing trails."
But they are not expecting the ice or severe weather to impact their opening date of June 11.
"We're still tracking towards that. It doesn't look like there will be any more cold, snowy conditions before then but its an exceptional snow base for us to start off with so we are very happy."
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