Corin Forest snow report

I quite like Corin when it’s actually snowing, but there doesn’t seem to be much natural snow up there right now.

Does anyone know of any other spots up that way with decent natural snow without driving all the way to, say, Selwyn?

Sounds like they are overrun. I’m still really keen to give it a go. Weekends in school holidays are bound to be busy. And I can understand why you can’t play in the last little bits of natural snow – the first 10 people to do that would trample it to nothing, then the scenic look is ruined for everyone who comes after.

I took the family up to Corin today, and left with some mixed thoughts about the day.

Firstly, it’s great to see that people from Corin are responding to feedback here, and I hope that it all helps make Corin a better place to visit!

It was packed up there today as well (Sunday), and Corin really doesn’t have the facilities at the moment to handle a crowd. There’s hardly any parking, meaning that people have to park on the side of the road – often parking partly on it as well. At points, there wasn’t room for two cars to pass, plus because there were so many cars on the side of the road, plus ditches on the other side of them, pedestrians often had to walk on the road as well. Really not safe, especially as the vast majority of people out there were families with young children.

Toilet facilities were lacking out there today too, especially the ladies. There were pretty long lines for the women out there.

The walk up to the snow play / toboggan area was a bit treacherous as well. Dirt & timber steps, with lots of areas where there were ice patches. It’s only a matter of time until someone goes A over T and hurts themselves.

There were also areas outside of the snow play area which actually had some natural snow (eg, on the way to the toboggan) that were fenced off, so nobody could get in and play with it.

When we were leaving, before 1pm, the 1pm session was already pretty much sold out, leaving a lot of disappointed people.

Having said all that though, it was awesome to see so many people giving Corin another go, and I hope that they make enough money this winter to be able to re-invest it into the facilities to make visiting an easier experience. More organised parking, better toilets, better paths would all help. More snow making would be great too, extending the ticketed area.

The ability to pre-book tickets online would be great too. Today’s trip was a 120km round trip. What I’d love to be able to do is hop onto the website, and see if there’s natural snow around. If not, or if I want to toboggan, then I’d be able to book a ticket for one of the sessions. Unfortunately I think there will be a number of people hesitant to head back out after this weekend. I really do hope that Corin can address the issues that they have with large crowds, and make it a must-visit destination.

Andrew Snell said :

Hi Proboscus,

Sorry you didn’t enjoy your trip to Corin Forest. Thank you for your feedback – we’re working to make Corin Forest the venue we want it to be and we value it greatly. The higher than expected visitor numbers have put strain on a few areas we weren’t expecting in these early stages. We’ve also discovered a part of being a little way out of town is it can be hard to react quickly and get extra people on deck when we have an influx of visitors.

No one being at the snow play area to check if you had paid seems a little strange to us – we can only think something called them away. All we can really respond with is thank you for your honesty and waiting to pay.

The issue with the alpine slide is one we face a lot in the cold months. The problem isn’t so much the build up of snow on the track, as you say that can be cleared relatively easily. The real issue lies in the track being iced over and water melting and coming through the joins, making it wet. The way the sleds work is by friction brake and once the track or the brakes are wet the sleds can become difficult to control and slow down. It is for the safety of everyone riding we make the call to keep it closed – we would much rather have it open, but don’t want to see anyone come off.

Thank you again for your feedback and for coming to visit, we’re working hard to make Corin Forest a great family venue. We hope we’ll see you again at some stage.

Cheers,
Andrew (for the Corin Forest Team)

I went there last weekend and one of the staff members kicked down a snow man (to deter others from entering the out of bound area). We all booed. He took it well. We had fun.

Hi Proboscus,

Sorry you didn’t enjoy your trip to Corin Forest. Thank you for your feedback – we’re working to make Corin Forest the venue we want it to be and we value it greatly. The higher than expected visitor numbers have put strain on a few areas we weren’t expecting in these early stages. We’ve also discovered a part of being a little way out of town is it can be hard to react quickly and get extra people on deck when we have an influx of visitors.

No one being at the snow play area to check if you had paid seems a little strange to us – we can only think something called them away. All we can really respond with is thank you for your honesty and waiting to pay.

The issue with the alpine slide is one we face a lot in the cold months. The problem isn’t so much the build up of snow on the track, as you say that can be cleared relatively easily. The real issue lies in the track being iced over and water melting and coming through the joins, making it wet. The way the sleds work is by friction brake and once the track or the brakes are wet the sleds can become difficult to control and slow down. It is for the safety of everyone riding we make the call to keep it closed – we would much rather have it open, but don’t want to see anyone come off.

Thank you again for your feedback and for coming to visit, we’re working hard to make Corin Forest a great family venue. We hope we’ll see you again at some stage.

Cheers,
Andrew (for the Corin Forest Team)

I took the family up on Saturday and couldn’t have been more disappointed. The line to pay for the session was halfway to the carpark due to there being only one window and one person taking money from the punters.

When I finally got to the window, the top step was rotten so I was left balancing on one leg on the step as I was fumbling about in my pocket to retrieve my wallet. Also, the alpine slide was closed due to snow.

Imagine my surprise when I took my kids to the snow play area and there was no one there to check if we’d paid or not!! We could have easily just walked straight from the carpark and played in the snow within minutes of arriving instead of waiting nearly an hour for our wristbands.

I took a quick walk up to the slide and saw that there were a couple of patches where the snow had settled on the slide. Honestly, it would’ve taken 10 minutes to sweep/shovel the snow out so that families could enjoy all of the facilities on the day.

I’m not sure who owns the Corin Forest facility but they have to improve remarkably in the way they run their business if they want families to not only enjoy their day, but then return.

Their new website was launched recently and looks great. It has a live web cam to the snow play area so you can see what it looks like. It looks great out there right now.

http://corin.com.au/

Their Facebook page says they can reach capacity so it’s first in best dressed. We have been hoping to get out there for a few weeks so hopefully this is the one.