A depressing video at Australia’s biggest ski resort has caused a stir online, even causing one person to turn around and cancel their weekend snow plans.
Australia’s snow season was off to a slow start — and it seems some popular slopes are feeling the consequences, with delayed openings seeing a rush of traffic.
Low June snowfall forced Perisher and Thredbo to postpone or majorly restrict their opening days this season.
With Perisher Snow Resort finally opening all four mountains this week, footage posted to social media revealed huge queues of skiers and snowboarders waiting for lifts.
The video, captioned “nightmare fuel” and posted Saturday, showed jaw-dropping lines at Front Valley, Perisher‘s main access run to the entire resort.
One unimpressed viewer commented: “drove up the mountain and turned straight around”.
Another person twas thankful for the video, saying they were considering going but “this made an easy decision”.
One commenter asked whether this “was normal” as they wanted to head there next year, to which someone gave the advice to “go outside school holidays and later in the season”.
Frustration over the queues is understandable given time is precious — and expensive — on the slopes.
A one-day lift ticket for Sunday June 25 is $234.
Then there are the additional costs of gear, transport and accomodation for those planning to make a weekend out of it.
In an online article, skiing website Powder explained how the start of the Australian ski season “was looking, well, a little slow”.
“But now that June‘s properly underway, winter’s finally appearing down under”.
“Perisher barely managed to adhere to its planned opening day this season, only offering a surface lift during the first weekend of the year due to low snowfall. And Thredbo, another major Australian resort, was forced to delay opening during the early June dry spell”.
But after a recent storm, Perisher appeared back on track last week as it opened up entirely.
This morning, its snow report said the resort had seen 16cm of fresh snowfall overnight.
“We’re looking at 28 groomed runs today, serviced by 27 lifts across the Resort,” the report read.
“What a way to wrap up the weekend!”
Earlier this month, meteorologists warned that if a number of climate factors combine this winter, the 2023 snow season could be one of the worst in decades.
But Australia’s ski resorts rejected warnings about the potential for below-average snowfall on the slopes this season.
Michael Fearnside, operations director at Perisher Ski Resort, earlier told news.com.au it is “certainly not doom and gloom” for the industry.
“Our business is weather dependent but we’re always just one snowfall away, it’s no different to a farmer waiting for the weather to break,” he said.
Mr Fearnside said that like many other resorts, Perisher has made significant investments in snow-making that has lessened their reliance on natural snow.
“Our snow-making covers 53.4 hectares across the resort and sets us apart for having the most reliable ski and board experience all season long, ”he said.
Perisher Snow Resort has been contacted for comment about the queues.
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