Outside a dozen police are poised to kick down their door.

The sun us still rising over the snowfields at Perisher, less than one kilometre away, when police finally storm inside, marking the dramatic end to a three month undercover drug operation.

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CONFESSIONS OF A PROFESSIONAL SKIER-TURNED-DEALER

RECORD NUMBER OF POLICE TO FLOOD SNOWFIELDS

Officers will find thousands in cash stuffed in bedside drawers, sugar cubes laced with LSD, cocaine and ice hidden in plain sight on a coffee table.

The amounts are small but it doesn’t matter: a surveillance team has already captured South Coast mates Dylan James Nielson, 23, and Bobby McCormack, 24, dealing ecstasy out of the Smiggins Hotel’s male toilets and selling cocaine at an inflated price.

These young men — bartenders by night, powderhounds by day — were significant players in the wild annual snowfields party that turns the Snowy Mountains into the ultimate seller’s market for drugs.

From this weekend NSW Police will swarm the Snowy Mountains with undercover teams, uniformed officers and drug dogs, as well as blocking the main roads and isolated mountain passes to search incoming cars for drugs.

Ski resorts have been forced to impose random drug tests on ski instructors, lift operators and other employees, who are told there’s zero tolerance for even recreational use.

It is a new rival for Schoolies and it’s all happening in the winter playgrounds that have carefully constructed a reputation for family-friendly fun with minimal risk.

Thredbo caused a stir earlier this month by banning children’s toboggans for being too dangerous, but it seems keeping more mature snowbunnies out of danger is much more difficult. Last snow season, police charged 125 people for drug possession and 22 for supply.

In 2016, 50 went down for supply — mostly males aged in their teens to their mid-30s who’ve put study or real jobs on hold to take a seasonal job and spend all day on the slopes.

“They call it discovery crime — the more we look at it, the more we go after it, the more we find,” says the local top cop, Monaro district commander Superintendent Paul Condon.

Some of the dealers claim they were cash-strapped or trying to feed their own habits with some casual dealing.

Bobby McCormack, one of the sleepy snowboarders in Lodge 39, was one of 11 people arrested in one day of simultaneous raids last winter. The part-time scaffolder, who usually lived with his parents, earned only $2000 after selling cannabis for two months.

Dylan Nielson was dealing on a higher level: 100 caps of MDMA for $3000 and a quantity of ecstasy tablets stamped with cherries for $300. He was caught selling a gram of cocaine for $350, a fraction higher than the going rate in Sydney but with a measly 12 per cent purity.

McCormack received a nine- month suspended sentence for drug supply while Nielson is due to be sentenced later this year.

In 2010, a winter roundup in Jindabyne netted a handful of security guards from a local pub and seasonal workers who were supplying drugs to partygoers, and the growing problem has forced Perisher and Thredbo to introduce random drug tests for some employees.

“Safety is our No. 1 priority and we have zero tolerance for behaviour that may put our guests and employees at risk,” a Perisher spokesman said.

Most snowfield deals are small-time buys for a big night out but police believe many dealers are well connected to significant criminal networks.

In one of the most significant drug busts in recent years, professional snowboarder Benjamin Miles sold about $300,000 worth of cocaine, ice and MDMA over the winter of 2015.

Unbeknown to the 25-year-old, he was dealing to an undercover officer, whose offers of cash kept increasing in line with Miles’ access to his upline supplier.

Miles, who was sentenced to three years and nine months behind bars, claimed his original plan was to sell just enough drugs, in his case an ounce of MDMA, to support himself financially while he lived in Jindabyne for the winter.

“The capacity of someone to deal that amount of drugs doesn’t happen overnight,” Monaro crime manager Inspector Neil Gray said,

“Obviously he had some criminal networks he was already associated with to enable him to supply those amounts.

“You will find that people we have caught in the past that have been dealing illicit drugs have intricate criminal networks, whether they be back in Sydney, Wollongong or Canberra.”

Bob Frost cut his teeth as a beat cop in Kings Cross in the ’70s and ’80s, when heroin use was rife and cocaine was an emerging trend.

He’s retired now, but the former senior sergeant spent years policing his hometown of Jindabyne and keeps a keen eye on the scene.

“They would have targets and numberplates in minds,” Mr Frost said of the cops manning the roadblocks on the main routes into the mountains.

“No matter how well they plan to combat the situation, there is always a way around it.”

The roadblocks aren’t foolproof: police have now also begun running drug dogs through the local area’s post offices to find drugs hidden in packages.

Undercover officers are rotated annually to ensure they’re not recognised. “They have been here already … I saw the guys a few weeks ago.

“They have a look at the place before logistics come down,” Mr Frost said.

“It always seems to be the new people so they aren’t known. I would suggest local people don’t even know they are here.”

Someone who does know is Cameron McKid, a highly experienced publican whose Banjo Patterson Hotel — the liveliest pub in Jindabyne — now employs 12 security guards over winter to keep things nice.

On a wild night, Mr McKid’s staff kick out up to 130 rowdy people, with binge-drinking and drug use combining to make things messy.

“The preloading is the problem. It is the hardest to deal with,” he said.

“They will drink enough at home so they can get past the door and then their eyes are wide open like saucepans an hour later.”

Mr McKid has ID scanners at the door and even closes the bar in the early hours of the morning, despite having a 24-hour licence.

Solidarity with other publicans helps: there’s a “banned-from-one, banned-from-all” policy thanks to the local Liquor Accord, chaired by Mr McKid.

When a troublemaker gets kicked out of his establishment, Mr McKid will call ahead to other hotels in Jindabyne, Thredbo and Perisher with a warning and a description.

Superintendent Condon said the snow region’s population increases by one million people over winter.

“When the amount of people increases, crime increases,” he said.

“As people migrate down there for winter, you have to think it’s just like on the coast over summer, people migrate there to have a good time. But with that comes issues.”

Snowy Monaro Regional Council mayor John Rooney says the area’s alcohol and drug problems are not endemic but seasonal. That is, the visitors are the problem.

“The young people bring the problem with them, they bring the alcohol and drugs with them.”