The time-frame's tight - but Mt Hutt's new super-fast eight seat chairlift should be up and running for the ski season

Millions of dollars are being spent on replacing the old quad chair at the Canterbury skifield with a new lift that can carry up to three-thousand people an hour to the top in two minutes.

Manager James McKenzie says the return station and towers are almost done, and that just leaves four weeks to put in the drive station and cable.

He says there's a longer period of electrical commissioning, that takes them close to the start of the season, but the project's tracking well.