Wanaka MTB Guide: Sticky Forest & Cardrona Bike Park

Two rides define Wanaka: 30 kilometres of pine-forest singletrack on the town's doorstep, and a chairlift-served alpine bike park 34 kilometres up the Cardrona Valley. Together they bracket a Southern Alps season that runs December through March.

By the IMPT Travel desk · Published 2026-05-30

The trail map at Cardrona Bike Park reads like an altitude profile: McDougall's chairlift climbs into a basin that tops out near 1,860 metres, and the signature descent, Peak to Pub, drops roughly 1,270 vertical metres over ten kilometres before spitting riders out at the front door of the historic Cardrona Hotel. It is, by lift-served standards, the highest-accessed bike park in New Zealand. Twenty kilometres back over the Crown Range, on the eastern edge of Wanaka township, sits its complete opposite: Sticky Forest, an unglamorous pine plantation stitched together by more than thirty kilometres of community-built singletrack. Riders who fly into the Southern Alps for one of these tend to leave hooked on both.

Sticky Forest: the community trail network

Sticky Forest is reached from a small cul-de-sac off Forest Heights Road, a five-minute pedal from the lakefront. Twenty-plus named trails are crammed into a tight forestry block, almost all built and maintained by the Upper Clutha Mountain Bike Club and volunteers. The climbing trail Hoe Down links into Easy Street for a ridgeline traverse with views over Lake Wanaka; the descent of choice for most intermediate riders is Venus, a flowy blue with consistent berms and tabletop hits. Stronger riders peel off onto the black-graded technical switchbacks of Stumpy and Yumpts, while the uphill corkscrew of Crankin' Fine has become a local benchmark climb. E-bikes are permitted on 22 of the network's trails.

Beyond the pines

Sticky Forest links cleanly into the lakefront Hikuwai and Deans Bank trails, allowing a half-day loop without retracing tyre tracks. Deans Bank is a 12-kilometre intermediate circuit along the Clutha River and works well as a warm-up or a recovery spin between bigger park days.

Cardrona Bike Park: lift-served alpine

Cardrona sits 34 kilometres south of Wanaka, accessed via a 13-kilometre access road that climbs roughly 1,200 metres off the valley floor. In summer the resort spins two ex-ski lifts, McDougall's and Whitestar, opening 24 trails across 345 hectares and 600 vertical metres of lift-served descending. The trail spread is genuine: green-graded flow on Sweet As and Morning Glory, intermediate blues like Prospector, Arcadia and Ridge Rider, and black-graded steeps including DTL, Dirtstar DH and the double-black Long Black. The full Peak to Pub line stitches the upper park into the valley descent.

Lift season and operating hours

The Cardrona summer season runs roughly mid-December through to early March (the 2025/26 calendar lists 13 December to 1 March, closed Christmas Day). Standard lift hours are 10:00 to 16:00, extending to 18:00 from 26 December through 10 February at the height of the Southern Hemisphere summer, and 20:00 on Fridays for the after-work twilight crowd. From late February the lifts typically wind back to a Friday-to-Sunday schedule, so shoulder-season visitors should check the day-of operations page rather than assume midweek spinning.

Events worth planning around

The Crankworx Summer Series includes a Wanaka leg in early March, with Dual Slalom historically hosted at nearby Bike Glendhu and a downhill round at Cardrona. It draws a credible international field while remaining open to amateur entry. Cardrona also hosts an annual mass-start Mega Avalanche-style race on closing day each March. Neither event is a UCI World Cup stop, but together they make late February and early March the highest-energy fortnight of the season.

Getting there without a flight to Wanaka

Wanaka does not have a commercial airport. The standard entry is Queenstown Airport, served by direct flights from Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and the east coast of Australia. From the terminal, SkyDrive shuttles run a fixed-price service over the Crown Range in around 1 hour 15 minutes; Ritchies and InterCity coaches take roughly 1 hour 40 minutes to 2 hours via Cromwell, with bike-on-board capacity that must be reserved in advance. From central Wanaka, Sticky Forest is rideable from town. Cardrona has no scheduled public bus in summer, so riders without a hire car typically share a private shuttle or hire a sprinter from one of the town's bike shops.

Shoulder vs peak: when to come

December opening is patchy: Cardrona's upper trails can sit under late snow into early summer, and afternoon nor'westers funnel through the valley. January and February are the reliable peak: lift hours are extended, dust is settled by short evening thunderstorms, and Sticky Forest stays rideable into the long Otago dusk. Late February through early March delivers cooler air, fewer tour groups and the Crankworx atmosphere, but lift access at Cardrona narrows to weekends. April closes the park entirely; Sticky Forest remains rideable but trails can hold moisture through the early autumn cold snaps.

Where to base

Wanaka township is the obvious base: it puts riders inside the Sticky Forest perimeter and within an hour of Cardrona's car park. Lake Hawea, ten minutes north, is quieter and cheaper but adds drive time to Cardrona. Cardrona Valley itself offers a small cluster of cottages around the historic hotel for visitors planning multiple park days who would rather avoid the access-road climb twice daily.

Zerode G3 setup-day POV through Cardrona Bike Park, filmed under McDougall's chairlift on a bluebird Otago afternoon.