Midway through the snowsports season, southern snow-field operators are happy with visitor numbers this year, despite the contracting economy.
The weather has been the district's strength, with Wanaka avoiding the destructive weather that has devastated other areas of New Zealand, instead enjoying a calm, if cloudy, fortnight.
The weather has proved both a curse and a blessing for the skifields, as cloudy days deter skiers but protect the snow that has fallen in regular, small doses over the past month.
Skifields do not typically release their visitor numbers because of commercial sensitivity, but were happy to report a strong influx of visitors over the July school holidays.
Holiday-makers are now being replaced by athletes from national and international teams coming to Wanaka to train and race, with August typically the busiest month in the ski calendar.
The Burton New Zealand Open attracted more than 200 athletes and about 3500 spectators to the Snow Park last week, compared to about 150 people who were involved with last week's Adaptive Snow Sports Festival at Cardrona Alpine Ski Resort.
Earlier last month, the Cardrona Games attracted more than 1000 people to the skifield on two consecutive nights.
The FIS ski race series this week began at Cardrona and Treble Cone, where some of the crowd-pleasing members of the Austrian national team were already in race training, as was US alpine skier Bode Miller.
The events calendar is packed until September 7, with races for everyone from secondary school and university students, to police, to masters skiers, to international athletes in cross-country, alpine, terrain park and free ski disciplines.
The town's multisporters will not be able to claim their mountains back until September 13, with the six-leg Mountain to Mountain event from Treble Cone to the Snow Park.
Snow Park manager Sam Lee yesterday said the southern lakes economy seemed to be resilient, noting there were still plenty of jobs about and people were not breaking with the long-standing southern tradition of an annual ski holiday.
"The season is really good. We've had quite a bit of natural snowfall. To get the snow, we have to take the bad weather," he said.
While Snow Park visitor numbers so far seemed down on 2007, they were up on 2006 statistics, so any drop in patronage this winter would not be the end of the world, he said.
Australia and South America had more snow this year, offering more options for international skiers, Mr Lee said.
Cardrona field manager Gary Husband yesterday said sales and visitor numbers were increasing noticeably, which was being attributed to the fine weather during the school holidays, the new Captain's Express chairlift and the revamped Captain's restaurant - plus the good snow conditions.
The investments in the Captain's basin had noticeably changed the flow of people around the mountain, with fewer people coming back across to the Whitestar Express and preferring to stay in the Captain's basin, Mr Husband said.
The skiing fraternity did not appear to be as affected by reports of the economic downturn as other sectors might have been, he said.
Although Cardrona had been busy during the school holidays, there had not been any occasion to shut the gates and restrict entry, Mr Husband said.
Last time he shut the gates, two years ago, it drew negative feedback from season pass holders.
The only half-pipe open in Wanaka at the moment is at the Snow Park, but Cardrona hopes to open its half-pipe later this week, if conditions allow.
Treble Cone marketing manager Anna Thomas said it was traditionally normal for the skifield to have a quiet patch after a strong July school holiday period and before a busy August.
Local skiers had not seemed as active over the past two weeks, probably because of the cloud, but the skifield seemed to have had a fantastic start to the season and Mrs Thomas said she expected more Australian visitors this month.
