I was up in the Snowy Mountains last weekend and was blown away (literally) by the impressive conditions this year. I know skiing in Oz is a bit hit and miss, but when it's on it's on. Almost makes you forget about the extortionate park entry fees and lift ticket prices. Anyone else had an Oz snow experience?

Here's a photo of one of my favourite backcountry areas. It was a truly epic day in 2004 with a layer of very dry powder snow on a firm base. It was magic.

We've been a few times over the years. Perisher before kids and mainly Mount Selwyn since kids.

We like it there (Mt Selwyn) - it's small and friendly, cheaper than the bigger resorts and ideal for a weekends skiing. Particularly good for little kids. You can BYO esky etc and settle down at one of their picnic tables for the day.

Should mention that none of us are fantastic skiers, we just like a bit mild fun now and again. We've never had a problem with lack of snow when we've been - might be lucky there.

I've just come back from 9 days in Hotham (6 days of skiing) and had some really great days. Of the 6 days, 3 were blissfully sunny, 2 were overcast and 1 was foggy. Really good snow was the compensation for the foggy day.

I also has a good year last year but I think I might have caught one of the best weeks. 2006 was rubbish. Didn't go in 2005 and 2004 was another exceptional year.

I would recommend it this year and if you're a good skier I would recommend Hotham.

Whilst there we also made a trip to Bright to buy some expensive but delicious beer, celebrated my Birthday, celebrated Christmas in July (even though it was August), and built a snowman and igloo for the kids.

I wish they would just get rid of the park entry and shove $6-8 on the lift ticket. I reckon they'd make more money that way (especially the bars and restaurants). I'm not sure if I remember this correctly but the park entry seems to have gone up by $5 this year and the lift tickets down by $4

Life's good.

Lucky you. I skied five days at Hotham in 2004. Best place in Oz for more experienced downhill skiers, although Thredbo's close. I'm more into backcountry skiing these days - I just love leaving the resorts behind and having all that space to myself. The Snowy Mountains in NSW offer a huge area with some great terrain.

Here's some photos of Hotham from 2004.

I'd love to try cross country but I haven't convinced anyone to do it with me. I'm not sure I want to do it on my own (and it's probably not safe).

I'd also like to try Boarding, Tele skiing and Kat skiing (but not specifically in that order). Maybe next year I'll try something else.

Nice photos. Love Mt Feathertop. I didn't take many pics this year but I wish I had my camera at one point. It was overcast but the sun had broken through and was shining on Feathertop. Beautiful.

My daughter was at Perisher last weekend, plenty of snow and very cold she mentioned. Google Perisher and see the website.

Went to Aldershot dry ski slopes last Sunday ,and my son and his friends went dough-nutting !!! great fun .......does that count ?

It's much cheaper and good aerobic exercise. and easier to fall over :curse:

These days there's a whole range of skis for backcountry touring. Some look much like downhill skis except the bindings allow your heal to move. Telemarking looks way cool.

I havent risked Oz snow yet but gave Japan a go back in March, it was fantastic.

Very nice. Hard to beat Japan - wish our runs were as long as those!

Any other skiers out there?

Yes.

We got back last week from Buller. Very lucky this year and 2007 with excellent snow, although had 2 days of poor visibility.

Very interested to hear about skiing in Japan to compare costs etc.

Find it very expensive here. A days lift pass for a family of 5 cost us just over $300 with no discount for extra days.

Wow. Was that price just for the lift pass?
We live in NZ and just took the kids to Roundhill for skiing. Well you can't say no when you're hoping to be in Queensland next year. Not too many ski fields there.

There are 6 of us and we had to hire skis and boots, lift passes etc cost $306 for all of us. I nearly had heart failure at that. Cost much more of course by the time you add in petrol, food etc and we dropped in at the Lake Tekapo hot pools for a dip afterwards.

Queenstown is very expensive, but if you fly into Christchurch, Roundhill, Mt Hutt and Mt Dobson are much cheaper and you can do Heli skiing, and all that too. Some people fly from Oz because it's apparently cheaper but I don't know how the fields compare.

I'm afraid skiing in Australia is very expensive. This is largely because national parks won't allow expansion of ski resorts.

One of the reasons I prefer cross-country skiing these days - call me cheap but I prefer it anyway.

The ski passes are expensive and the resort entry just adds to that but if you live near the slopes then you can save (or offset) the extra expense on the travel. It cost me about $250 in fuel to get 6 of us to and from Mt Hotham.

If you don't live near the slopes and it'll cost you to get there then it is definitely worth looking overseas.

Talking to a friend from Christchurch last night. He said that the lift passes in Mt Hutt cost about NZ$80 which is much cheaper than Mt Hotham but he was jealous of the number of lifts at Mt Hotham and the shortness of the lift queues. I've not been to Buller but I suspect that it's more crowded.