On 28 July 2013, the First Ascent Ski Festival closed at Afriski Mountain Resort in the northern Maloti Mountains, doubling as the South African National Ski Championships. Thirteen years on, the resort is still the anchor of Lesotho’s winter tourism season.

By Staff Reporter

On this day in 2013, the First Ascent Ski Festival closed at Afriski Mountain Resort, an event that also ran as the South African National Ski Championships. It took place in the northern Maloti Mountains, at the ski field that has become the fixed point of Lesotho’s winter calendar.

A championship in the Maloti Mountains

Afriski Mountain Resort sits about 3,200 metres above sea level, near the Mahlasela Pass and roughly 80 kilometres from Butha-Buthe. It is the only fully operational ski resort in sub-Saharan Africa. The resort opened about 25 years ago, though organised skiing in the area dates to the Maluti Ski Club of the 1960s.

Hosting a national championship there in 2013 drew skiers and snowboarders from across South Africa, which still supplies most of the resort’s visitors. Most cross into Lesotho at the Caledonspoort border post in the Free State, about four and a half hours’ drive from Johannesburg.

What Afriski Mountain Resort draws today

The resort reports that its busiest single day of the 2026 season so far drew more than 1,400 visitors, according to figures attributed to its chief executive, Theo Ferreira. In 2025, its record day passed 1,600 visitors, counting both day guests and those who stayed overnight. Afriski now employs 227 full-time and seasonal staff, nearly all of them Lesotho nationals.

Tourism accounts for about 7 percent of Lesotho’s annual economic output, and Afriski provides steady seasonal income in one of the region’s poorest economies. Because snowfall is unreliable at this altitude, the resort runs artificial snow machines to keep its six slopes open through the June-to-August winter.

Source: Associated Press report on Afriski Mountain Resort visitor numbers, July 2026