Rangiwahia Ski Touring

I'm planning on running a ski touring trip to the now abandoned Rangiwahia Ski Field. It was the second ski field established in New Zealand, and was once busier than the nearby Mt Ruapehu. The hut that we will stay in was once the ski club buildings. The trip is massively dependent on the snow, so there will only be a relatively short notice as to when we go (probably about a week). Ideally this would be ski touring trip, although I have no idea whether anyone else has touring gear but me. If there isn't any interest in touring, the trip will be converted to just walking to the top of the old ski field with skis/boards on our backs and then skiing down. Costs should be about $50 depending on numbers. The club has a couple of sets of avalanche gear available to be borrowed as well.

Feel free to sign up even if you don't have touring gear, I'm just gauging interest at this point. You will need regular ski gear though.

The plan is to drive to the Renfrew Roadend car park, then hike up to the rangiwahia hut (2-3 hours). We'll then stay at the hut overnight, and wake up relatively early and begin heading up ridge. In the past, you have been able to begin skinning straight from the hut. We'll then head up the ridge (where the old ski field was) to Mangahuia summit. If the snow is good, we'll head around to some south-west facing slopes where we will hopefully do a few laps up and down. If the snow is poor, we will traverse the ridge round to Pourangaki, where there will be softer northerly facing slopes. We will then trace our steps back, and ski down the ridge to Rangiwahia hut. If there is ridiculous snowfall over the next month, we may even look at going up to Mt Mangaweka where there used to be a heliski operation running. The terrain there is much steeper though, so it needs a lot of snow.

Good snow option:

Bad snow option:

An example of some of the skiing we could get (in our dreams). Rest assured, we will have music as good as this video's playing the entire day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZNJaWC4L8Q