{"id":20748,"date":"2013-09-05T09:09:00","date_gmt":"2013-09-05T09:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/safety-decision-closes-mt-hutt-with-guests-on-mountain-2\/"},"modified":"2013-09-05T09:09:00","modified_gmt":"2013-09-05T09:09:00","slug":"safety-decision-closes-mt-hutt-with-guests-on-mountain-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/2013\/09\/safety-decision-closes-mt-hutt-with-guests-on-mountain-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Safety decision closes Mt Hutt with guests on mountain"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Mt Hutt College kids get out amongst the snow\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-413982\" data-mce-src=\"http:\/\/www.eglobaltravelmedia.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/Mt-Hutt-College-kids-get-out-amongst-the-snow.jpg\" height=\"151\" src=\"http:\/\/www.eglobaltravelmedia.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/Mt-Hutt-College-kids-get-out-amongst-the-snow.jpg\" style=\"border: 0px; color: #333333; cursor: default; float: left; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px; line-height: 19px;\" width=\"226\" \/><span style=\"color: #333333; line-height: 19px;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">A combination of drifting snow and poor visibility has lead to Canterbury\u2019s Mt Hutt ski area closing the access road with a total of 316 guests still on the mountain.<\/span><\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: #333333; line-height: 19px;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\"><br \/><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<div style=\"color: #333333; line-height: 19px;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">Mt Hutt ski area manager James McKenzie said while ski area management had been aware of an approaching front and a poor forecast for today (Wednesday September 4) the situation deteriorated \u201cpretty quickly\u201d.&nbsp;<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #333333; line-height: 19px;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\"><br \/><\/span><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"SONY DSC\" class=\"alignright  wp-image-413983\" data-mce-src=\"http:\/\/www.eglobaltravelmedia.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/Girls-from-Mt-Hutt-College-getting-creative-with-paper-cups-in-the-cafe_media-300x200.jpg\" height=\"160\" src=\"http:\/\/www.eglobaltravelmedia.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/Girls-from-Mt-Hutt-College-getting-creative-with-paper-cups-in-the-cafe_media-300x200.jpg\" style=\"border: 0px; cursor: default; float: right;\" title=\"Girls from Mt Hutt College getting creative with paper cups in the caf\u00e9 \u2013 (L to R) Leanne Dixon, Penelope Geortzen, Hayley Riordian, Isabelle Talbot, Alesha Ingham\" width=\"240\" \/><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #333333; line-height: 19px;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">\u201cWe made a decision to close the mountain at 11.30 this morning and a number of people made it safely down the road,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #333333; line-height: 19px;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">\u201cHowever at midday a combination of new snow blowing around everywhere and&nbsp; wind gusts of up to 45kmh, especially around the Saddles, meant visibility along the upper section of the access road deteriorated to the extent we closed the road completely.<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #333333; line-height: 19px;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\"><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #333333; line-height: 19px;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">\u201cGuest safety is of paramount concern and we\u2019re continually assessing the conditions. We won\u2019t rush to get people down until visibility improves.<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #333333; line-height: 19px;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\"><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #333333; line-height: 19px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"SONY DSC\" class=\"alignleft  wp-image-413984\" data-mce-src=\"http:\/\/www.eglobaltravelmedia.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/Mt-Hutt-College-boys-having-fun_media-300x200.jpg\" height=\"160\" src=\"http:\/\/www.eglobaltravelmedia.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/Mt-Hutt-College-boys-having-fun_media-300x200.jpg\" style=\"border: 0px; cursor: default; float: left;\" title=\" Mt Hutt College boys having fun (L to R) Jack Sheridan, Travis Howden, Tobi Dalglish, Jordan Charteris, Josh Ree, Levi Fiddymont, Lachy Mee\" width=\"240\" \/><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">\u201cWe\u2019ve got plenty of food, hot drinks and space up here in the base building, so if we do have to hunker down into the hours of darkness our guest will be warm, dry and well looked after.\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #333333; line-height: 19px;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\"><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #333333; line-height: 19px;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">Of the 316 guests currently on the mountain, up to 270 of them are students, staff and parents from nearby Mt Hutt College.<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #333333; line-height: 19px;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\"><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #333333; line-height: 19px;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">Mr McKenzie said the Year 7 to 12 students were all in good spirits and many were going out to \u201cplay around\u201d in new snow accessed by one of the ski area\u2019s Magic Carpets in the beginner\u2019s area.<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #333333; line-height: 19px;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\"><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #333333; line-height: 19px;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">\u201cWe\u2019ve received 10 to 15cm of new snow so far today, and while visibility has closed our chairlifts we\u2019ve still got the Magic Carpet going for them and they\u2019re pretty excited to be up here enjoying that,\u201d he said. \u201cI think the majority will look back on this as one great adventure.<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #333333; line-height: 19px;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\"><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #333333; line-height: 19px;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">\u201cWe\u2019ll give them afternoon tea and of course dinner if they\u2019re still here, but our priority is to only let their buses down the road if we\u2019re comfortable it\u2019s safe to do so. Our staff also will drive pilot vehicles to provide a safe escort.\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #333333; line-height: 19px;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\"><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #333333; line-height: 19px;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">The Southerly blast is set to ease back later this evening.<\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A combination of drifting snow and poor visibility has lead to Canterbury\u2019s Mt Hutt ski area closing the access road with a total of 316 guests still on the mountain. Mt Hutt ski area manager James McKenzie said while ski area management had been aware of an approaching front and a poor forecast for today [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20748"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20748\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}