2019 Australian Ski Season Wrap

Words: Shredder MacAlpine

The season is done. The resorts shut a few weeks ago and the liftless mountains are, only just, still skiing. What a season it was. A lot to love, especially if you made an early season trip to Bali and missed the skiing in July. But not too early—Falls Creek, like many of the resorts, had their best season opening on record with 7 lifts servicing a 44cm base. 

That early snow got all the ski resorts going. Mt Buller opened early and launched their new six seater, Bourke Street Express. First timers around the country were ecstatic, Chillfactor readers somewhat indifferent. Perisher also opened a new chair, Leichhardt. People are still no closer to being able to spell Leichhardt and wonder why new chairs have to replace old ones rather than setting new routes, opening up new ways to ski the mountain. 

After the riff-raff of early June many of the resorts returned to a more familiar early season groove of clear cold days with the occasional apocalyptic rain event. This was no doubt frustrating for mountain operation teams that used every available chill to turn on the snow guns. Perisher found a 60 hour streak of cold temps to run the guns in late June. Skiers around the country struggled on a combination of death cookies, snow making whales and ice. But then the snow came. 

Mid July felt like the real beginning. Thredbo skiers returned from Bali clicked back in and began  carving up Exhibition. Buller skiers replaced brunch with bumps. Whilst Hotham skiers, they had never left, so they just swapped out their rock-hoppers for their new skis. As the season set in so did the usual suspects. Terrain parks were rocking, Falls Creek village was ski-in-ski-out, Thredbo powder slashes were frequent. 

By August skiers were smitten. It snowed…a lot. From the 7th of August we found ourselves in a snow cycle reminiscent of 2018. All the resorts recorded over a metre of snow in that early August storm (including Baw Baw, excluding Buller). Buller skiers returned to their tune of saying “terrain doesn’t fall from the sky” and “I’d rather ski grass on a mountain than powder on a hill.” Little did they know their time would come soon enough. When the snow finally came to Buller everyone celebrated. FreeBOM, Buller’s day of ski culture celebration saw the biggest party run ever recorded with well over 100 skiers all sharing a bump. 

It was a big late August and September. The best days skiing were some of the last, but once again too many skiers had gone back to Bali or Noosa or wherever they go. The resorts were empty with snow packs peaking in mid September, 2.25m at Spencer Creek. Those hardcore skiers that remained had a ball and as with every season, the ski tourers had the last laugh.

Our FAVOuRITE stats of the season

• 47cm in 24 hours at Fall Creek

• 38 Powder slashes in Thredbo’s wrap video

• 840,281m vertical skied by Robbo across 107 days at Perisher

• 367 gloves donated by Mt Buller lost and found to the Mansfield Zoo to be used as Meerkat play toys

• 17 debaucherous DJ Eddy shows at in Mt Hotham

• 214 days until next season.

Left: Cody Townsend, August 9, Thredbo. Photo by Matt Wiseman

Centre: Photo by Chris Hotham.

Right: Skier, Lee Rolls, Location Guthega, Photo courtesy of Perisher

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