Coronet Peak, New Zealand

Coronet Peak is one of the most popular ski resorts in New Zealand, a short drive or bus ride from the major south island tourist destination Queenstown.  Staying in Queenstown in the winter and skiing the 2 close-by resorts makes for a great vacation getaway.  There is so much to do and see in the area. It’s hard to beat.

Our first visit was during a pretty bad snow year.  They had only received about 100 cm of snow (39 inches) by the end of August.  So this review doesn’t reflect what the experience would be when everything is open, but we still really enjoyed it which says a lot.

Stats

Real Vertical ?	448 meters (1,470 feet)
Size	280 hectares (692 acres)
Annual Snowfall ?	197 cm (78 inches)
Lift Pods ?	3
Distinct Trails ?	38
Review Date	August, 2025
Number of visits	1
Our Rating	★★
Resort website	https://www.coronetpeak.co.nz

Coronet Peak New Zealand Review

Looking at stats alone, Coronet Peak wouldn’t compete with any of the resorts on our Best 100 list, and wouldn’t even qualify due to lack of natural snow which is why we gave it a 2-star rating.  There are a lot of great reasons why we will continue to go back though.  It’s a modern resort with high-speed lifts, lots of snowmaking, a great base lodge, and surprising challenge with some steep runs.  The terrain is varied and interesting, and because it’s mostly covered with tussock (a kind of grass that grows in clumps), it takes very little snow to make it skiable.

The best feature is of course its proximity to Queenstown.  It’s a 13-hour, 6,500 mile flight for us, and we’ve been there twice with a third trip planned this year. So it must be a special place!  Great food, lots of activities other than skiing, amazing scenery, and a very friendly vibe makes this one of our favorite vacation spots.

If you are on a ski trip to Queenstown it is likely you will ski both Coronet Peak and The Remarkables. The same company NZSki owns both of them.  They are quite different so it is a good plan to ski both of them on your trip for variety.

Lift pods

Coronet Peak filled their relatively small footprint with some impressive lifts.  The two main lift pods are both served by high-speed 6-packs.  We never encountered a lift line of more than a couple of minutes.

The Coronet Peak Express is the main lift right in front of the base lodge.  It serves the runs that start just below the peak the resort is named for.  There are some interesting features here, including the surprisingly steep groomed run “The Hurdle”.  There is also a small off-piste area called “The back bowls” which makes no sense to me because they are not on the backside and are not bowls.  I think they were inspired by Vail on that one, but these probably have only about 100 meters / 300 ft of vertical before you will have to traverse out in order to avoid a long hike out of a remote canyon.  We didn’t get to ski that or “The Chimney” due to lack of snow, but I think we skied everything else.  They have snowmaking guns that cover most of these, and they groom them out daily.

Greengates Express is the other main lift.  We really enjoyed the Greengates run and took that several times over multiple days.  Many of the runs served by the Greengates Express were closed due to lack of snow and lack of snowmaking coverage.  A couple without snowmaking were open with very thin snow coverage. Some of the only moguls on the mountain where found on one of the 2 of these “Upper Walkabout”.  The runs with snowmaking were interesting and we did a lot of runs on this lift.

Meadows Express is a chair mostly used by skiers progressing from the learners carpets.  The lift doesn’t go very high and serves a low intermediate area of the mountain so we skipped it.  You can ski that terrain from the Coronet Express anyway.

The Rocky Gully T-Bar is used for race training, but there was a good steeper run “Race Arena” that wasn’t blocked for racing/training there that we lapped on a 4″ powder day.  It was overlooked by most of the other skiers that day and there were some great turns found on it.

For Beginners

Beginners have the carpets and one run off the Meadows Express, so not a lot but it’s probably enough. There were a lot of people learning and taking lessons when we were there.  The Remarkables might actually be a better choice for beginners and novice skiers though.

Food, Lodges, and Parking

The base lodge is very modern and quite large.  They serve meat pies which we ate at every lunch out on the trip.  Good coffee too, made to order with an Espresso machine. New Zealand has perfected pies and coffee and it’s hard to find anything as good in the US.  The very best we had was at the Ferg Bakery next to Fergburger in Queenstown.  There are other decent food options too, and we never had any trouble finding a place to sit in the large seating area.

Parking deserves special mention because there are lots of stairs required from many of the parking lots up to the lodge.  Pretty exhausting and the parking shuttle seemed to be having issues when we were there.  Many of the New Zealand ski areas are like that because they are perched up on the sides of mountains far above the flat valleys.

Queenstown

If you go to Queenstown, skiing will probably be only one of the many activities you do during your visit.  It’s notorious for Jet Boat rides, bungee jumping, and tandem paragliding.  We did the jet boat rides ha ha.  It also has a very vibrant bar and restaurant scene.  You can find any and all kinds of foods of high quality.  It’s expensive in NZ $, but with the very favorable exchange rate we had nothing to complain about.

You can also drive from Queenstown to scenic places like Glenorchy and Wanaka to hike and sightsee.  If you have time to do an overnight definitely get over to Milford Sound which is simply amazing.

The good

• Modern resort with high-speed lifts and a nice base lodge
• Good snowmaking coverage
• Excellent grooming including some of the steepest runs on the mountain
• Spectacular views
• Easy access from Queenstown via bus or car
• Surprising terrain variety

The bad

• The average natural snowfall is so low that unless they get at least an average amount of snow, many of the runs that don’t have snowmaking coverage will be closed.  Go in late August or early September for the best coverage.
• Lower parking lots require a pretty significant climb to get up to the lifts.
• This is a small resort by North American standards
• Lift ticket prices are on par with large North American resorts (in NZ $), so unless you have an Ikon pass it’s going to sting.

Would we go back?

Oh definitely!  Skiing in the summer is one of our favorite things to do and the proximity to Queenstown makes it a no-brainer for us.  We are going back in 2026 which will be the 2nd consecutive year. This is amazing considering it’s a 13-hour flight to Aukland, and then another connecting flight to Queenstown which ends up taking most of a full 24-hour day.