Snowsure: 3.8
- Occasionally gets enough snow for skiing
- Is often closed due to a lack of snow
- Occasionally suffers from a lack of snow
- Rarely suffers from a lack of snow
- Turoa is snowsure even in the poorest seasons
Visitor reviews for Turoa Ski Resort
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(NOTE: Reviews may be edited by our content team for the purposes of ensuring accurate and relevant information)
(NOTE: Reviews may be edited by our content team for the purposes of ensuring accurate and relevant information)
Latest
June 04, 2015
barry william from
New Zealand
barry william from
New Zealand
Management of road is poor; needs patrol and barriers to control speed on Clarry's track. Needs patrol and several gates down Boneyard to make it a safe ski slope for access. Needs patrols on as many runs as practical; shift the patrol from day to day, notify skiers which runs are patrolled. Investigate better queuing methods.Redo the access from bottom of Clarry's to the lift so mobile skiers don't hit skiers getting ready to go to the gate.
November 06, 2014
Craig Phillips from
New Zealand
Craig Phillips from
New Zealand
I live just under 2 hrs drive from Turoa. It is a great place! I have been snowboarding at almost every spot in NZ and Turoa is at the top of the commercial fields for me. The upper mountain is wide open, with huge big bowls and gullies and wide open spaces to bomb. If you are super keen there is plenty of accessible stuff to hike. Well groomed terrain park and pistes. Up high and out wide is where it is at. And a season pass for, what, $475? What the hell has anyone go to complain about? 5 days and you get your moneys worth. Whiners, honestly.
I love the club fields of Christchurch but Turoa still rocks for me. I swore I'd never do a commercial fields again after Craigieburn etc but, yeh, Turoa is great. Only downers are that Ruapehu attracts any crap weather around, and in holidays it gets crowded. But spring time, it's really just glorious. And it's open into November too!!
October 01, 2014
Disillusioned from
New Zealand
Disillusioned from
New Zealand
RAL need to do more than just collect the money. No patrols. No controls. Run to bottom down Clancey's track just mayhem 30 Sept. Hoons barrelling through the little kids. Rocks everywhere. A bit of basic grooming around lunchtime would have been a big help, but no grooming all day, anywhere. Definitely South Island next year for us.
October 02, 2013
Leigh Yeoman from
New Zealand
Leigh Yeoman from
New Zealand
I'm sick of negativity.
If you're going to bring your fast pace mentality down from Auckland for the weekend and give everyone grief about how shit the service is and how shit the snow is, push off back to Auckland.
There was a bunch of people on the summit today and the conditions were perfect. Not a bad word to be said. Smiles and positivity everywhere. But on the way up I had to put up with yet another cog in the machine winging his face off.
What is wrong with people, look at where you are and how beautiful it is.
It's seems like everyone with the right attitude knows where to find the snow.
Explore a little more.
September 17, 2013
brams senior from
New Zealand
brams senior from
New Zealand
Response to the critics.
It is impossible for me to think of any negatives or to criticise in any way the Turoa experience. As a family we have enjoyed the mountain since the beginning of the 1980's watching it grow and flourish. The staff on Turoa have always been their greatest asset; 2013 has produced even more characters. Don't bitch about the weather, pick your days; so far 14 days this year 12 bluebird! last year and the year before the same, do your research and have a good time. Don't bitch about the bosses. If you have an issue face up to the people that run the place, I have always found the management to be very approachable and they do listen because they do care, so speak up.
Queues on some days are a fact of life on our skifields as is crap weather and remember planning staffing levels without any idea of how many punters may front on a given day is at best a lottery, biggest crowd for me this year a Friday that everybody wagged on! bastards!
Think how lucky you are to be there, relax and enjoy!
September 13, 2013
Jake from
New Zealand
Jake from
New Zealand
Response to another reviewer:
RAL management is the worst I have ever experienced anywhere in the world. If you can't open the lifts at 9am, stop advertising that they do! At least tell us it might be a slow morning.
And lifties who should be counting the queues are just standing round yarning while we wait for 20 mins and there are 4 ppl going up on the 6 person chairs - it just adds to annoyance in the lift line.
Beautiful day, midweek is fabulous and amazing!
Captive audience = no incentive for it to change anytime soon. Damn.
September 05, 2013
Davo from
New Zealand
Davo from
New Zealand
Good field at mercy of elements. Great when weather allows - just check forecast. IF you don't need to get lessons then it's great and fantastic. If you need lessons ring the day before and check what's going on and be very specific or you will be disappointed. Staff try hard despite management decisions which do not put customers first and are examples of not doing the right thing and or just not being intelligent/organised. Poor staff bear brunt of customer dissatisfaction. Examples are all from Tuesday this week and I have seen similar before.
Example 1 of not doing right thing. No group lessons for beginners before midday because have decided to have only 2 instructors working at 10.am. That was the explanation I was told after questioning. So beginners who have made the effort have to wait until lunch to begin or struggle and cause mayhem without knowledge.
Example 2 of not doing right thing. Ski school office does not open until 8:45 and then staffed by one poor soul with a huge queue.
Example 3 - just not intelligent. Having decided there are no group lessons there is no sign outside stating this which would have sent a lot of the queue away so they did not waste their time. I heard several people get angry with the one poor girl left to bear the brunt.
Example 4 - only private lessons available were late afternoon and almost filled up. Again no sign outside stating this. Again poor girl bore brunt of several people being angry having queued for 20 minutes or more to be told this.
Now it may have been management underestimating customer turnout or staff going sick and that's why they under staffed the ski school office, and maybe they thought it would be good to train instructors, but that leaves customers last. It could have been sorted easily by looking at the crowds and putting customers first- especially first-timers. The one group of people who definitely need a 10am lesson are first timers. Others can survive but first timers cannot.
There seemed to be plenty of staff to check for lift passes - why not reassign 1 ! Just spoils what otherwise should be an excellent experience
Just doing the right thing and being intelligent would make everyone happy at this field.
August 29, 2013
Merv from
New Zealand
Merv from
New Zealand
Often people don't realize that Mount Ruapehu is our Sacred Mountain, National park and adjacent to a World Heritage area. It operates in conjunction with and the support of Tangata Whenua and the regulations of a National Park. My understanding is that Ruapehu Alpine Lifts are a limited shareholder organisation who put all "profits" into, therefore back on to our ski fields. They cannot do just what they want to.
I've skied there (Turoa, sometimes Whakapapa) for many years and have found, as the years go by, the experience gets better and better. The management of RAL put a huge effort into a positive friendly experience for all, including adaptive skiers. Often it takes them time to get things going, that's because of its uniqueness, not bad management. It's a unique mountain with its inherent dangers and conditions, most of us accept what we are blessed with, thank the staff and management and go for it, usually with a huge smile.
July 23, 2013
Joseph R from
New Zealand
Joseph R from
New Zealand
I hate to have to criticise my local hill - but RAL/Turoa needs a serious shakeup if it wants to stay in business. The mountain road is poorly run; effective traffic management and segregation of 2WD / 4WD vehicles would help - as would active mitigation of road ice hazards, as opposed to reactive management of road ice hazards (i.e.: re-gritting only after vehicle accidents have occurred - which is, unfortunately, presently the case). Chartering helicopters to support avalanche blasting operations on the upper Mtn, at 1:30PM on a bluebird powder day (case in point, Tuesday July 16th) is clearly unacceptable - and also signals abject failure of RAL's risk management systems; i.e.: why is there not a standard blasting plan for snow pack risk spots - and why is this not executed at first light or well before the ski area opens? (as is the case with every ski area I have ever seen). Stating that upper mountain lifts (High Noon Express - and also Giant) are just "ON HOLD" - when trail prep work has clearly not even started at midday, and there is clearly no intention to even open those lifts, is frustrating - and borders on disrespectful.
Turoa ski area offers some of the best inbounds and lift-access backcountry skiing in New Zealand. The terrain is simply awesome. If only RAL/Turoa would get its act together it would be world-class. Meanwhile, it is about as expensive to travel to the South Island Lakes or Canterbury club fields from Auckland; hence the market is competitive - and a monopoly on North Island ski areas is completely irrelevant. If RAL/Turoa continues to trade with this level of indifference to effective operational management - then it will soon be out of business. Please, RAL, don't let this happen. We love this ski area too much.
June 19, 2013
Malman from
New Zealand
Malman from
New Zealand
Would like to endorse another review.
Life pass holder for Turoa and Whaka, skied for 30 plus years there.
Needs some arse kicking to get mountain road sorted in morning, epic days are often lost to road crew not organised, @ times hire chains stuck at top of mountain, not at bottom required, finally getting organised at 9.00 am duh ? Encountered road crew hardly able to speak english (ski school staff), road not gritted, road crew vehicles unchained losing it on road (have the photos), grader trying to tow cars/4wd out with just a massive chain - lucky I donated to some soles a short tow strop. Caviiler attitude to this mega dangerous road it seems, these issues are directed to the people at the top of the food chain not crew who work in extreme conditions to do the best they can.
Best days are lost due to road issues, digging out chairs etc, lack of staff at start of season.
Total gut last year when Turoa elected not to bother with top T bar, shifting of the terrain parkchair to the Heke has further compounded crowding - terrain park chair kept the stylers a little contained (my 2 kids!) pay more get less.- Six is a fantastic chair but creates bottle necks up top and groomed trails killed within hours (prefer off trail but not always possible) Multiple injuries due to crowding at times - go check out the first aid area!
Enough negative, when it all lines up, both Turoa and Whaka offer some fantastic terrain - prefer North Island than south due to easy access wide. On its day it can be epic!
Nearest