Buller's carpet patches on Wombat were a temporary fix for an underwhelming snow season. Photo / Instagram, JerryOfTheDay
Buller's carpet patches on Wombat were a temporary fix for an underwhelming snow season. Photo / Instagram, JerryOfTheDay
Gum trees, snow melt and strips of astroturf. Australian skiers are reeling from an historically bad snow season.
One of Australia’s biggest ski resorts has announced the earliest ever closure of its main ski areas, after a season dubbed one of the “worst in decades”.
New South Wales’ Perisher Ski Resort called time yesterday on its two largest snow fields following an underwhelming ski season.
“Given current conditions, it has quickly approached the time of the season when we need to wrap up operations in certain resort areas,” said the statement from the Aussie resort on Saturday.
From September 3, lift operations on Mt Blue Cow and Mt Guthega would be over for the year.
Perisher Valley has announced its earliest ever closure of Blue Cow and Guthega. Photo / Supplied; Perisher
“The low snowfall, warmer temperatures and limited opportunity for snowmaking we’ve seen recently has made it hard to remember the awesome pow days of mid-June and the string of stunning bluebirds in late July,” said the resort of the short-lived snow.
Earlier this year ABC weather reporter and meteorologist Tom Saunders made an ominous prediction about the season.
“If El Nino combines with a positive IOD [Indian Ocean Dipole], which models currently predict, then there is every chance this year could be one of the worst snow seasons in decades,” he wrote on the long-range forecast in June.
The Australian Bureau of Meteorology recorded a second week above the positive IOD threshold in late August, making a warm dry spring increasingly likely.
Selwyn Snow Resort, which reopened for the first time this season after bushfire damage, remains closed.
At Mt Buller in Victoria, images of astroturf joining the sparse snow cover summed up a desperate season.
The video of Lower Wombat published on August 27 went viral, showing ski schoolers walking a narrow strip of green carpet on bare slopes.
American snow pundits praised the Australian ski resort for “thinking outside the box”.
A “no bulls**t” condition update from Victoria snow blogger He Loves Adventure said he was glad they were going the extra distance to keep the season going.
“You can either complain or be grateful the Buller team has found a way to get the terrain open,” he wrote. “The return track now consists of a mix of snow and astroturf, which in the right conditions still lets you ski most of the track, it’s only the last 15m or so you need to walk.”
While there were top-ups of snow since, on August 27 the resort announced it had cancelled the planned Snow Australia Interschools competition.
While an alternate venue was sought, “given similar snow conditions across the Australian resorts combined with the short lead times to arrange alternate accommodation and event workforce this was simply not practical.”
New Zealand’s snow season
Last year Mt Ruapehu’s ski operators were forced to close 20 days early, triggering the current financial woes. The mountain had already cut a third of its staff and later announced voluntary administration.
Despite a late arrival of snow, Ruapehu Alpine Lifts, which continue as temporary operators at Whakapapa and Tūroa, are hopeful they will meet their planned October 15 closing date at Labour Weekend.
“At this stage we are very pleased with the coverage over the Whakapapa and Tūroa ski areas and have a target of the October long weekend as the closing weekend. That said, we are always subject to weather and snow cover to maintain safe terrain and this can all change with some consecutive poor weather,” a spokeswoman for Ruapehu Alpine Lifts said.
The current snow base at Whakapapa is 150cm on the upper mountain tapering to 89cm on the lower slopes.
