Ski Resorts

Thredbo 2009: Or, Aussies Will Ride Anything

SATURDAY

Let me begin by saying it’s not easy to operate a ski resort in Australia. The winters are short, the weather is unpredictable and the country is pretty isolated, which means resorts can’t rely much on worldwide travelers to visit.

That said, I was still extremely excited to be heading to Thredbo, one of Australia’s most popular ski resorts, for some shredding on the tail end of a business trip. It was a steaming 30 celsius in Toronto, and my last day of riding had been in March with Josh. I was looking forward to getting in a few turns on the other side of the planet.

I had chosen Thredbo because a) it was the easiest resort to get to from Sydney, where I had spent the previous week, b) the bus station was a quick hop from my hotel and c) the trip was a little under eight hours on a single bus. Thredbo also featured Australia’s highest lifted peak serviced by lifts, but that point would become moot (more on that later).

So, on Saturday morning I hopped on an Australian Greyhound bus and headed to Thredbo. Prior to leaving I had checked the conditions, and the resort was reporting a base of about 50cm with good spread and seven lifts open. I was encouraged, because seven lifts was the majority of the ones at the resort.

The bus ride was long, but uneventful. There was lots of beautiful countryside, and the ride gave me the opportunity to quickly see several towns and cities like Canberra (the capital), Cooma and Jindabyne.

One of the most interesting things about taking the Sea to Sky Highway from Vancouver to Whistler is that the weather in Vancouver can be sunny, warm and well above zero, yet a quick two-hour drive later you are surrounded by heaps of snow. For some reason I was expecting this to be the case in Thedbo, too, as the bus rode through the rain. At some point, I thought, the rain would surely turn to snow. When the bus pulled up in Thredbo, though, it became quickly apparent that I had misjudged the weather – it was still raining in the village. And as I would discover in my couple of days on the mountain, rain in the village generally meant rain up top, too. But more on that later.

I had booked myself into the Thredbo Alpine Hotel, figuring the central location would make it easy for me to get around, and the reviews had been quite positive. The hotel had a very 1970s decor to it, but it was definitely friendly and warm. I checked in, got up to my room, dropped my stuff, and realized my first big problem.

There was no Internet in the room.

Now, this might not seem like a big deal at first. But imagine you’re 10 days into a trip where you’re as far away from your family as you can possibly be, in a time zone 14 hours in the future, in a tiny hotel room, on your own, with no way to communicate with anyone other than telephone, which is ridiculously expensive. Also, imagine you’re on a sort of “working holiday” whereby people in your office back home are still expecting answers to some important issues. It was not the start I was hoping for. Okay, I thought, I’ll take a tour around the village and find an Internet hotspot. I’ll also see what the rest of the village is like.

Unfortunately, the entire village could be toured in about 10 minutes. It certainly wasn’t as dull as, say, Jay Peak, but it had absolutely nothing on a Canadian resort like Whistler or Blue Mountain. At 4pm on a Saturday, you could also hear a pin drop. Not a good sign.

A quick investigation revealed there were no hotspots to be spoken of. Back at the front desk, they confirmed I was screwed.

I refused to let my situation get to me. After all, I was here to snowboard, and I knew that even if the rain continued all night there would be riding on the mountain. And at around 10pm, there was even a positive development – the constant rain turned to very thick, wet snow. But hey, it was snow.

SUNDAY
I got up at 7am ready to roll. I had a coffee (pardon, a “flat white” – the coffee really is awesome pretty much everywhere in Australia), got dressed and headed out to get a lift pass. Checking the conditions at the base of the mountain, the resort reported 10 fresh centimetres up top and once again seven lifts open.

Unfortunately, “seven lifts” essentially meant only half the mountain and no bowls were open. “Australia’s highest lifted point” was inaccessible, as well as most of the difficult terrain on the mountain. Not a good sign. Even worse, lift tickets were almost A HUNDRED DOLLARS. Remember what I said about ski seasons being short? That meant an early season discount on lift passes didn’t exist.

I started by day by taking the Snowgums chairlift, which delivers you more or less to the middle of the mountain. The way up was very green and very slow. This would turn out to be a common theme at Thredbo; some of the lifts that serve popular terrain are ancient and painfully slow. But what the hell, I thought, I’m going to snowboard!

I was giddy with excitement when I finally got off the lift. I strapped in and let ‘er rip on the World Cup run, an ungroomed blue run full of fresh. It was amazing. There was no-one tracking out the snow, there was no-one in front of me, and I was snowboarding in June, on the other side of the planet. Totally awesome.

The elation was somewhat shortlived as I approached the middle and bottom of the mountain, though. There was only one run back to the lift, and it was via a man-made pile of snow that was dicey at best (this would be a common theme). Moreover, if I wanted to get back up to where I just was, I had to endure another 20-minute lift. I decided it was time to explore some more.

I headed over to the “Cruiser” area of the mountain, which was accessible only by another slow, ancient lift followed by a trip further up using a high-speed quad. Conditions on the Cruiser side weren’t bad, but the trip from the top of a run to the bottom in this area was shorter than a Blue Mountain run. Seeking something more interesting, I headed to the only other part of the mountain that was open, served by the Gunbarrel Express.

The only open run (aside from the terrain park) was a fast, long blue run named High Noon that eventually turned into a man-made pile of slop. It was actually a great run, but it was the only one open. So imagine basically the whole resort taking the same run up and down, over and over. By noon, the trail was more or less demolished.

What amazed me, though, was that everyone continued to ride the shit out of the trail. By noon, there were bare patches EVERYWHERE on the bottom half of the run, but it seemed to phase no-one, nor were the bare patches marked in any way. After two days of this, my snowboard had significant new dents in it, many of which are going to require repair before next season.

Just as I was getting a bit disappointed with the whole experience I ran into Stefan (I’m guessing about the spelling), a builder from Sydney who was camping in his van for the weekend. He was a really cool dude, and he offered to take me on a run with him. He was dropping into the trees, of which there were many. Happy to get off the groomers, I followed him in. It was pretty funny – within two seconds of dropping in, he was GONE. I, on the other hand, was quickly sinking into the deep, very wet snow. I thanked him for showing me around and said that while I enjoyed it, I was going to take a pass on following him on the next run.

Having explored all three areas of the mountain by about lunch, I headed back in, pretty dejected. It was obvious the mountain was not in good shape. There wasn’t much happening in the village. And I had no Internet. I was happy I had come, and happy I got to shred. But thankfully I only had one day to go.
MONDAY

It rained overnight and throughout Monday, so there was no new snow to speak of. Having rode everything available on Sunday, I headed out again on another expensive lift ticket because I thought, how often was I going to get to do this? The advantage this time was that I knew where to go and what to hit. I once again headed up to the World Cup area for a couple of early morning runs, and had an absolute blast. One good thing about Thredbo was there were no lift lines to speak of on either day, so I had the entire run to myself. Once again I was shocked that, even as one of the first people down, I was encountering unmarked bare spots everywhere, and rain. No-one else seemed to mind. I genuinely got the impression the Aussies had such a short season that they were game to basically ride anything.

After a couple of runs I headed back to the Gunbarrel Express area where I did the same run over and over and over (there was only one open, once again). After about five or six runs I decided to call it, and once again headed in around noon and started packing for my return to Sydney – and Canada.

Could the experience have been better? Absolutely. But as Stefan from Sydney told me, it was still very early season. Things really didn’t start hopping at Thredbo, he said, until July or August, when the snow really started dumping. Did I regret going? Absolutely not. Snow or no snow, it’s an experience I’ll remember the rest of my life.

OTHER NOTES

* The on-mountain facilities at Thredbo are quite nice. There’s plenty of space, a wide variety of foods, and places to eat both at the bottom and top of the mountains.
* Australians eat kangaroo. For real.
* Should you ever visit Thredbo or Perisher (a neighbouring resort), try August or September.
* I am told you can do the drive from Sydney to Thredbo in five or six hours if you rent a car. The drive up seemed mostly to be major highways.

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