Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Knoll Ridge Cafe

before and after (and I forgot about that mid March dusting!)

Just over a year ago, on the night of Friday the 13th of February 2009, some stupid person set fire to the Knoll Ridge Cafe, Waterfall Express Terminal, and the cat shed. While the 3 level Cafe and Cat Shed were written off due to the arson, the terminal for the chair luckily only suffered minor damage, and the season was able to resume without disruption to the Waterfall Express Chair, whew.

Remains of the Cat Shed (by Knoll T Bar) - 27/06/09

temporary single level Knoll Ridge facilities & Waterfall Express Chair terminal building (see fire damage) 27/06/09

A temporary cafe structure was built in time for Winter 09, so there were still basic facilities up there. Over the summer of 2009/2010 Ruapehu Alpine Lifts have been rebuilding a new cafe and shed in a new spot. We hoped to get up there in the weekend to check it out, but the lifts were closed due to strong winds. So here's the latest webcam image instead... and a link to the recent news piece on TV1. The new Cafe is just down the hill a bit from the old one, closer to the little ski school hut.