Well, I had the pleasure of staying at Mount Hutt overnight last week. Unfortunately I didn’t have much choice and neither did the other 1200 people stuck there for the night after 200km/hr winds closed the access road.

The day started out a little breezy which is not uncommon at Mount Hutt but the winds built up rather quickly and became exciting about lunchtime. By exciting I mean that it was hard to stand up when a gust hit, a rope hand line was required to get to the toilet and car windows were getting blown in. It wasn’t that bad though, most of the 300 school kids stuck thought it was a great time (not sure their teachers had the same thoughts!) The mountain staff pitched in to provide food and keep people happy. At 10am the following day the road reopened and a convoy of vehicles headed down the hill, with everyone waving and quite happy to be getting into a hot shower on returning home I expect.

In all I was glad to have experienced a night at Mount Hutt, something that happens only about once in every ten years so I can count myself lucky to have been there.

The worst thing about the whole time was that a lot of snow got blown away. However, there is still a great base and with snow in the forecast this week it should be great skiing at Mount Hutt. Maybe just bring a sleeping bag for the unexpected.