Skiers and board riders who shelled out $234 for a lift pass were left outraged as massive queues plagued the action on a popular snowfield over the weekend.
Footage on Saturday shows hundreds of people lined up at Perisher resort’s main access run, Front Valley, with one TikToker calling the situation: ‘Nightmare fuel.’
The long wait times to get up the slopes are being blamed on bad weather conditions and a slow start the snow season, creating a backlog.
The ski season has had a slow start in Australia, with a huge queue forming at Perisher Ski Resort on Saturday
‘I think I would legit just turn around if I saw that,’ wrote one.
‘I felt sick watching this video.’
Another said: ‘I was considering going but this made it an easy decision.’
‘Guess my season pass won’t see much action,’ added a third.
‘So much for skiing this year,’ another commented.
A number of skiers and snowboarders also vented about the cost to ski at the resort, considering the crowd.
A one-day lift ticket for Sunday is $234. One-day lift tickets over the next two months are priced over $200.
That’s without taking in additional costs such as equipment and accommodation.
A giant crowd formed at Front Valley – Perisher’s main access run to the entire resort – due to a delayed opening and bad weather conditions
Perisher Ski Resort operations director, Michael Fearnside, explained that safety was paramount at the resort and it was decided the lifts were not going to operate in light of the hazardous weather.
‘In certain weather conditions, it just isn’t safe to operate every lift,’ he told News.com.au.
‘Yesterday, we saw wind speeds of around 100km per hour at the top of the mountain which limited the number of lifts we could safely open’.’
He added: ‘The current series of weather systems has delivered 64cm of snow over the past seven days and the Perisher team are working hard to continue to prepare additional terrain and lifts for operation during the school holidays.’
The ski season has had a slow start with slopes at Mount Hotham, Mount Buller, Perisher and Thredbo appearing shockingly bare earlier this month.
Every major ski resort in Australia was slated to open their runs on June 10, but Thredbo Ski Resort in NSW pulled the plug due to a lack of snow.
The resorts themselves, however, aren’t worried yet as minimal snowfall is common for this time of year, but nevertheless the forecast of a dry and warm winter is causing some concern.
Minimal snowfall is common for this time of year, but the forecast of a dry and warm winter is raising some alarms (pictured, Perisher)
The last two years saw generous seasons that dumped snow across the mountaintops in late May but these seasons were outliers (Thredbo)
Resorts are using June to create their own stock of snow so that they can pad out whatever does end up falling from the sky in time for their openings.
‘We generally start making snow about this time and the areas over the next few weeks usually get some snow and progressively open their runs over June,’ Ski Industries manager, Ben Quane, told Daily Mail Australia.
‘If no snow came that would be disastrous, but most people have invested in good snowmaking systems. As long as we keep them cold there will be products for skiers and snowboarders, we just need the cold weather.
‘That’s like the insurance policy, you just need a bit of cold weather or natural snow – ideally both.’
These weather conditions, combined with the warm and dry forecasts for the 2023 season, point towards snowfall being less than average this year.
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Read more at DailyMail.co.uk