Snowboarding and Skiing in Australia

It’s often a surprise to many that not only is it possible to ski in Australia, but the skiing can be very good. And that at least for those on the Eastern seaboard, winter is looked upon with some fondness not only for the relief it brings from the summer heat but also for the expensive adventures that lay in wait in the Snowy Mountains.

Yes, that’s right, Australia has mountains. Not particularly high mind you, but higher than hills. The Great Dividing Range cuts a sliver of the country from North to South separating the lush, fertile east coast (which the English landed upon) from the parched, sunburnt interior (which the Dutch landed on earlier, concluding that Terra Australis was a bit crap). The tallest mountain, Mt Kosciuszko, stands at an altitude of 2228 metres or 7310 ft. And it has snow. As you might imagine, the snow is not particularly consistent, but the terrain is steep and good, so when the snow is on, the skiing is great.

For me, the Australian snowfields always held some magic. It meant warm nights by the fire in a steeply-roofed lodge, peering out at the crisp view through the cold window glass. Getting the week off school to get some shred. Laying in bed too excited about the adventures of the next morning to sleep. Of struggling to get out of bed as early as possible to dress in a brightly coloured onesie and hit the first lifts. Of going up and down the mountain countless times ignoring the pain of weary muscles until the lifties said “last ride”. Of coming back to the pad, darkness descending, getting out of the wet uncomfortable boots and getting into some logic puzzles (as a geeky kid) or a couple of beers (as a geeky adult). Of meeting a cute blonde girl who worked at the hotel hiring out gear, randomly running into her on the slopes one day and then finding that she ripped harder than either I or my brother. Of the album One Hot Minute by the Red Hot Chili Peppers which had just come out prior to heading down to the mountains and which was on solid rotation the whole trip. To this day those songs still remind me of the snow.

My own parents even met down at the snowfields. Mum had been told in confidence by their mutual friends that my dad was a “dragon” which in baby-boomer speak apparently meant “ugly”. When they met at the snow for the first time the first thing she said was that he wasn’t a dragon after all. A downhill tyre tube incident where they ended up submerged in a frozen creek sealed the romance. As soon as I was old enough, they put me on skis. In my teens I learnt to snowboard and three weeks after I met my now-fiance, when I was a poor grad student, I convinced her to drive down to the snow with me despite the fact that she hated the cold. As a romantic getaway it wasn’t my best effort- we ended up sleeping on the shores of Lake Jindabyne in the back of my beat up old Holden Commodore wagon, next to all the snowboarding gear. However I did take along plenty of blankets to ensure she was warm and an acoustic guitar so I could serenade and woo her, and I like to think she had a good time, even if she’s never explicitly stated so.

But even in those days I was being lured more and more by international travel, by faraway lands, by the deep powder in the ski-fields of Japan and North America and Austria, and my work also was leading me further and further from Australia. Meanwhile, a trip to the snow in Australia has never been cheap, with a daily lift ticket north of $100 and total trip cost almost equalling that of an overseas trip. A bunch of years thus went past with nary a visit to the winter wonders of the Great Southern Land. Until this year with the mercury sinking, when nostalgia got the better of me and I clambered into my Mini Clubman and hit the highway south to Canberra and the Snowy Mountains beyond.

These days, the roads are much better than when I was a kid. Dual carriageway freeways stretch from Sydney all the way to Canberra and only the final hour or two is on single-lane highway. What used to be an 8 hour drive has been reduced to around 6. And the driving is great. The road passes Goulburn, Australia’s historic first inland city, and the shores of the stunning Lake George, said to be capable of filling and emptying in mere hours, subjecting it to mysterious theories about where all the water might go, if evaporation alone cannot account for the change in water levels (the lake has been empty since 2002).

West of Cooma, the landscape turns arid, with the gnarled trunks of snow-gums and large boulders strewn across the countryside. The area is rich in wildlife, with species of kangaroos, wallabies and wombats abundant and well adapted to the conditions. I passed a sign warning of kangaroos for 7 kilometres, and skeptical that they could be localised to such a small area, I nonetheless passed the carcasses of no less than ten kangaroos on the side of the road within that space. Standing at times nearly 2 metres high, you really have to look out for them when driving at dusk or at night, with collisions producing similar conseqences to that of elk in the northern hemisphere for all concerned- driver, car, and beast. Meanwhile, wombats are everywhere- my friends and I once came across one on the mountain while we were snowboarding. It was blizzarding and the wombat was attempting to dig a burrow into the snow. Like kangaroos, they are often found plodding along the centre-line in the middle of the night. Dark in colour and the size of pigs, they pose a serious danger to cars (and we to them).

I round a bend and finally there is the great Lake Jindabyne, formed after construction of the Jindabyne Dam, part of the vast Snowy River Hydroelectric Scheme. Formation of Lake Jindabyne flooded the old Jindabyne settlement- parts of the town can still be seen when water levels in the lake are low.

At only 2 in the afternoon, I am wondering whether I can fit in an afternoon of boarding, but heading up over the pass into the mountains the weather turns ugly with wind and sleet bucketing down and the road covered with snow and ice. The cost of a half-day ticket being prohibitive unless conditions are good, I turn around and tiptoe my way back down the mountain in the Mini, passing a black kangaroo standing majestically on the side of the road with the snow falling all around.

I head to my accommodation at Carinya Alpine Village, the cheapest I could find at short notice. I frown at having paid over $80 a night for what is little better than caravan park accommodation. A budget destination the Snowy Mountains surely are not. Short of organising a large group of friends to occupy every last space of an expensive on-snow lodge, your best option is probably the hostel at either Thredbo or Jindabyne, although they will set you back a similar amount. My cabin is literally too small to swing a cat (I can just fit my snowboard inside beside the two bunks) and heated to a “barely there” state by a rattly old electric heater. Gaps in the window have let dirt blow onto the beds from outside. The walls are paper-thin and a school group is going nuts in another (larger) cabin just outside. The kids (who are actually pretty nice kids) have also practically destroyed the already-grim shared concrete and corrugated iron toilet block. Internet access? Forget it- I can’t even get a 3G signal on my iPhone here. Nonetheless, the property that the Carinya Village occupies is naturally beautiful and I sleep like a log with the help of a few extra layers of clothing. The people talking in the cabins around me do a good job of rousing me from my slumber at an early hour and I see the joyful first rays of the sun peeking through the trees with an endless blue sky.

There are two main snowfields in the area, each around 30 km from Jindabyne. Perisher Blue is an amalgamation of 4 smaller resorts- Perisher Valley, Mt Blue Cow, Guthega and Smiggin Holes, thus covering a vast area, with the resorts linked by ski-trails and the ski-tube, a train which runs underneath the mountains and is very convenient. Meanwhile Thredbo has Australia’s highest lifted point, and offers mostly steeper terrain than its counterpart. This year, it is top-to-bottom, with the help of snow making machines located lower on the mountain. Under such conditions it offers runs as long as ten to fifteen minutes flat out, and will be my destination today.

The last time I went snowboarding was in Niseko in Japan just before I experienced the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. Metre deep Japanese powder Thredbo has not, but ten centimetres (4 inches) of snow has fallen overnight, and it’s not too bad. I try out my GoPro camera “boot-cam”, which breaks off my boot after 3 runs. Undeterred, I mount the camera on my brand new helmet and spend the day exploring the mountain from top to bottom. The mountain is as exhilarating as the surrounding countryside. At the windswept peak, wide, steep expanses of snow offer endless opportunites for carving. Lower down, the sparsely spaced snowgums provide fun dodging the trees while the groomed runs are filled with moustachioed men in fluoro onesies stroking big egos and first-timers bruising their tailbones. I’m surprised to find that the on-mountain food has improved somewhat since I was younger- at the Merritts Restaurant they are serving everything from German sausages with sauerkraut to pretty good chicken laksa and Indian food. Even the prices don’t seem as steep as I remember, but that may just be because I’m from Sydney and in recent years suitably desensitised to being ripped off.

Worn out and with muscles aching, I climb back into my frozen car for the trip back down the hill. The next day dawns equally as glorious, and I ascend to an unexplored peak with fervour. Making my descent through a rock garden I hit a patch of ice and next thing I know my board is at my eye level and whack! The back of my head unexpectedly strikes either rock or ice with force. The chin strap on my helmet smacks my jaw shut and I check my teeth to make sure none are chipped or broken. With my head pulsing, and thanking providence for the purchase of my helmet a day earlier, I make my way gingerly down the mountain to the village at the bottom. On the way down, the GoPro boot mount, which I had glued on with contact adhesive overnight, breaks off again and I’m forced to stop to pocket the camera. I’m not seeing double or anything but I do feel somewhat nauseous, so at the bottom I take a breather for an hour until the feeling passes before heading back up for a blissful afternoon of boarding.

On my final day, I wake up to an overcast sky with the stiffest neck I can ever remember having and a headache which lasts another week. Evidently I have some whiplash as well as concussion. Snow related injuries are not new to me or my family- I previously broke my wrist snowboarding in Austria, a feat repeated recently by my brother-in-law, while my father broke his collarbone skiiing in Australia and had to be stretchered off the mountain. At some point today I need to drive the 6 hours back to Sydney- I have meetings I need to be at the following day. I check the snow cams and the visibility on the mountain is next to zero and the winds are approaching gale force. I call Perisher Blue and am told that a half day ticket costs $100, almost the same price as a full day ticket. With the money, the weather, and my pounding head I decide to give it a miss and get back on the highway. I arrive back in the steel and glass harbour city, and true to form there is a major power failure in a tunnel that leads back into the city and I have to take an alternative route choked with the worst traffic I can remember ever dealing with. It seems all the more monstrous after my blissful few days on the open road. But the air feels that little bit warmer than it did just a few days earlier, and spring is just around the corner.

My old history teacher from highschool, Mr Quill, used to say that the two most unnatural things a human could do were to ride on the backs of horses and speed down a snow-covered mountain on skis. I have to admit he has a point. The last time I got on a horse, it stood there eating grass defiantly while I futilely implored it to start walking. Meanwhile, the snow is even more ridiculous. Where else can you mortgage your house to afford a holiday where you freeze your arse off, dress in ridiculous waterproof outfits and boots that you can’t walk in, and come home with lasting injuries? If we were made by a benevolent creator, he was surely surprised when we strapped wooden sticks to our feet and hurled ourselves at speed down slippery mountain peaks.

Regardless, the snow will always hold that magic for me- the cold, dry chimney-smoke winter air of the mountains and the anticipation of white-knuckle adventure.