The Remarkables Ski Road

A relentless switchback climb from the Kawarau valley to the Remarkables ski base, one of the highest roads you can drive in New Zealand.

From the Lake Wakatipu basin near Frankton the road leaves SH6 and immediately starts stacking hairpins up the flank of the Remarkables range. The lower kilometres are now sealed and the final stretch to the ski lodge is good gravel, but the whole way is a tight, exposed ramp climbing roughly 1,300m to around 1,600m, with the lake and Queenstown dropping away below you. It is short but unrelenting, and the views over the Wakatipu basin are some of the finest in the Southern Alps. There is no barrier on much of it and the surface switches between asphalt and loose gravel. Mind the sheer unguarded drops, the loose gravel on the upper hairpins, and oncoming ski traffic on the single-lane sections.