You don’t have to ski to get a buzz out of going to the snow. By David Sly.

EXPECTATION is always high during the drive up the mountain. As lush dairy country melts into dense eucalypt forest, all eyes are peeled for the first sign of snow. There’s an excited whoop as a frosty blob is identified, and within minutes the vision is transformed into a white wonderland. Familiar Australia, as coastal kids like me know it, is left behind. The High Country of Victoria in winter is a world apart.

From June to October, squat snowgums across the Great Dividing Range become ornate ice sculptures as they bear the weight of snowfalls. These are a unique sight – a definitive Australian signature, a marvel especially for European and American tourists, who represent about six per cent of the 1.84 million annual visitors to Australia’s sprawling snowfields.
It surprises many that skiers and snowboarders from Northern Hemisphere Alps come to Australia. More surprising still is that the 12,000sq km Australian Alps holds more snow through winter than Switzerland. Though small in stature, Australian snow regions are measured against international benchmarks – many of these crucial in establishing high standards for Australia’s modern snow resorts.

The mobility of Australian holidaymakers has had an even more telling influence, forcing the High Country to compete with Queensland beaches, Outback treks, Bali resorts and Japanese or New Zealand snow regions for tourism revenue.

To survive, Australian snow resorts have had to offer comparable facilities, standards of luxury and activity options. Record attendance figures across Australia’s five main resorts during the 2003 winter suggest they are getting the mix right.
Skiing is now an adjunct to a snow holiday, not the sole purpose; rigorous activity and peaceful leisure are catered for in equal balance. For every half-pipe shaped into a snow hill to please leaping snowboarders, there’s a funky alpine apartment, cafe or stylish bar with an open fire, inviting the bookish to curl up for a long indoor session.

Outdoor activities stretch from the playful (inflated-tube sliding parks) to the exhilarating (snowmobile tours along mountain tracks); from the sublime (rambling forest walks in snowshoes), to the ridiculous (sliding down ski runs at Falls Creek on customised snow bikes). The slow tempo of life in a snowbound mountain village encourages a new type of snow visitor to unwind – a trend reflected by relaxation programs offered at emerging alpine spa facilities.

I confess to being a hopeless snow junkie; the first mention of a sizeable fall in the mountains surrounding Falls Creek, Mt Hotham and Mt Buller has me scheming hurried weekend visits to make the most of fresh skiing cover.

Sure, the legend of gonzo alpine drinking and feasting feats has a certain allure, but the rush brought on by downhill skiing is a powerful enough incentive to warrant a concentrated 11-hour drive to the big snow mountains. (Travel faster and you’ll certainly attract the attention of speed detection police that are fixtures on the alpine highways.)

Fortunately, there are other sensible travel options to consider. Adelaide snow holiday specialists The Ski Connection organises twice-weekly coach trips from Adelaide to the heart of mountain resorts through winter. Plane flights can also be booked, either to Albury (with 4WD transfers to the resorts) or to the new Alpine airport near Mt Hotham, connecting from Sydney or Melbourne. Infrequent snow visitors will be startled by the physical transformation of Mt Hotham. The genesis of this project can be traced to the creation in 1986 of a new alpine village on freehold land at Dinner Plain, 40km east of Mt Hotham ski resort. Melbourne architect Peter McIntyre designed houses to fit a new Australian model; judicious use of different timbers, stone and corrogated iron in any colour mix, provided they could be identified in the timber of the surrounding snowgums.

As the village swelled to 250 buildings, the physical look of Dinner Plain was embraced by Mt Hotham Ski Company and applied to new developments in the heart of Mt Hotham village. Having first expanded the ski area, added new lifts and redesigned ski runs (including a ski bridge over the village road), the company began building homes, apartments and shops, encouraging other developers to add to the transformation.

Hotham Heights has become a new flagship of alpine enterprise, its value heightened by an alpine airport built in 2000 at Horsehair Plain (20km from Hotham Village, 10km from Dinner Plain), which takes direct flights during winter from Sydney and Melbourne. And continued expansion of the ski area – with more intermediate-grade terrain across Australia Drift and The Orchard, and advanced plunges off the Keogh’s and Gotcha chairlifts – has ensured demand for apartments and houses remains high.

A similarly dramatic transformation of Mt Buller came at the hands of Melbourne builder/developer Rino Grollo, who bought the ski lift company in 1992 (from South Australia’s McMahon Holdings). Mt Buller caters for crowds, being the closest large skiing restort to Melbourne. Grollo brought a new vision, transforming the village into a year-round destination with the addition of summer food, wine, music and sports events, a chapel (popular for weddings in a romantic setting) and a campus of La Trobe University.

The Grollo family’s support of skiing extended to building an Olympic snowsports training facility, which triggered Australia’s emergence as an unexpected star of freestyle aerials skiing, producing world champions Kirstie Marshall, Jacqui Cooper and Alisa Camplin.

Mt Buller is now part of the World Cup aerials calendar. The competition events on September 4 and 5 will attract the world’s best athletes in this spectacular sport – and also lure a large spectator hoard keen to taste customary World Cup carnival revelry.

Like Mt Hotham, Mt Buller has enjoyed a recent building boom that changed its village face, starting with the creation of a five-star hotel (now operating as the Mercure Grand Chalet Hotel). It also includes a paved village square at the base of the ski area, the development of funky apartment buildings (Alto Villas, Elkhorn apartments) and the refurbishment of key lodges, including Breathtaker All-Suite Hotel, which incorporates an Alpine Spa Retreat.

Falls Creek has been slowest of the big resorts to transform, though incremental improvement to the ski area has consolidated its place as an appealing family ski holiday destination. Its powerful and expansive snowmaking system (covering 100ha of terrain) and snow grooming fleet has ensured skiable snow in marginal weeks of seasons past. This infrastructure commitment has guaranteed strong annual patronage – a lead which other big resorts have subsequently followed.

Mt Buller has spent $750,000 improving its 70ha system (including indoor snow manufacturing capabilities during marginal weather). Mt Hotham, which once boasted that it only had natural snow, has a 10ha circuit of snowmaking guns.
Efforts continue to improve Falls Creek’s skiing experience; for beginners and intermediates, a new quad chairlift has replaced the Panorama poma, reducing lift queues across the popular Panorama/Towers ski areas. High-powered floodlights have enabled a large circuit in the central Village Bowl area to be used for night skiing, snowplay and championship ski and snowboard jumping events.

Developers are slowly changing the look of the village with a few notable new structures – the most prominent being the Frueauf Village cluster of apartment blocks, centrally linked by the cool Milch restaurant/bar and Glo cinema facility.
Snow country culture is never static; developers come and go, ownership of lodges and ski companies change, the shape of resorts shift as a consequence. The big news for 2004 is that McLaughlins Financial Services are new owners of Australian Alpine Enterprises – the management and administration company which runs Mt Hotham and Falls Creek ski-lift companies. The $75-million deal will not greatly affect mountain activity this year but could help ignite a new phase of Alpine development.

Sitting at the centre of this activity is a South Australian – Colin Hackworth, managing director of Australian Alpine Enterprises. He's part of a significant band of SA expats who have staked a claim in the mountains, including Helen and Mike McNally (20-year veterans of managing big lodges at Falls Creek, Mt Hotham and Mt Buller); Pip and Mark Whittaker at Falls Creek's Feathertop lodge (who have SA seafood shipped directly each week, and a generous list of SA wines in their bar); Wendy and Simon Rawlings (owners of Summit Ridge lodge at Falls Creek) and the Matern family at Mt Buller, who built Alpine Retreat and also own Enzian Lodge.

Then there's surprising numbers of SA families who swell village numbers during school holidays. The snow country may be entirely different – though it's more familiar than you might suspect.