Skiers and snowboarders mark winter season opening at Victoria’s Mt Buller

Amid scarce snowfalls across most of Australia’s alpine resorts, Mt Buller has opened its winter season with skiing, snowboarding, tobogganing and other activities as of today.

With the King’s Birthday long weekend marking the traditional opening of the season, Mt Buller’s Bourke Street Chairlift rolled into action this morning for first tracks of the winter as a result of a month-long effort of snowmaking.

The resort’s all-weather snow factories enabled the Bourke Street run to open to skiers and boarders as of 8.30am for the first chair.

Mt Buller’s alpine village is also offering a weekend of live music, family entertainment, snow, parties and, as of tonight, fireworks.

Welcoming the start of the season, Mark Bennetts of Mt Buller Mt Stirling Resort Management, advised “the long weekend is all about getting together with friends and family and celebrating the start of the snow season.

“The fact we are getting in a little skiing and snow fun is a bonus.”

The sparce snow cover at Australia’s alpine resorts this year contrasts with 12 months ago when, as a result of two pre-season storms that dropped over a metre of snow during the fortnight leading into the June long weekend, the opening weekend was considered the best in two decades

As a result, resorts are offering extensive entertainment programs.

As of yesterday, Thredbo advised “we’re celebrating winter in style all long weekend with a huge line-up of events, entertainment and more to kick off the season.”

The resort also, as of yesterday, stated it was “starting the long weekend right with a fresh dusting of snow up top overnight and there’s more promising snow and cooler snowmaking temps in the forecast.”

Images: The first chair riders of the winter season at Mt Buller (top, from left: Samuel Caulfield, Tristan Mildenhall , Daniel Capuzza, Lachie Holbrook, Ryan Staples and Angus Meissner) and winter sport action at Mt Buller (below, credit: Tony Harrington).