The risk of an avalanche remains high in the mountains around Queenstown and Wanaka this weekend, and snowboarders and skiers are being warned to stay away from the back country.
The Mountain Safety Council has issued high-risk avalanche warnings for all Queenstown and Wanaka back-country areas.
Gale-force winds, poor visibility and more than 10cm of snow is expected for Queenstown this weekend.
"The snowpack is overloaded. Light triggers are all that is needed to produce large avalanches. All aspects are affected and many events continue to be triggered remotely," the council warning says.
Remarkables skifield manager Ross Lawrence said the avalanche danger had been high for the past two weeks.
A blizzard had brought 8cm of new snow overnight on Thursday.
"There's still a lot of instability in the pack," he said, urging skiers and boarders to stay within the boundaries of the skifield.
"If you are going into the back country you have to be well prepared and know what you're doing," he said.
He had not had any reports of avalanches since a snowboarder triggered a level 3.5 avalanche last Saturday.
Queenstown skifields are due to open today, but conditions are windy and overcast.
Wanaka skifields Treble Cone and Cardrona were closed yesterday because of a northwesterly gale.
Both received 2cm of new snow yesterday.
Treble Cone expected a lot of snow and was looking forward to better conditions during the weekend.
The MetService forecast for today is fine in the morning, with snow and continued westerlies later in the day.
Tomorrow, the forecast is for snow with westerlies of 30kmh.
Cardrona expected snow with 40kmh westerlies today, but the snow was forecast to clear in the afternoon.
Westerlies of up to 30kmh were forecast to continue throughout tomorrow and Monday.
The Snow Farm and the Snow Park were affected by wind yesterday and got 4cm of new snow.
The Snow Park hoped to open last night for night skiing.
It was expecting winds between 30kmh and 45kmh over the weekend.
In the Wanaka back country, snow to 1000m and severe gales added weight to the already overloaded snowpack.
Back country travel is not advised.
