The Grollos are bullish on Mount Buller, despite the threat of less snow

The owners of Victoria’s alpine snow resorts, the winter playgrounds for Melbourne’s rich and famous, are buoyant about their future, despite the long-term threat climate change poses to the length of Australia’s annual ski season.

Victoria’s three major mountains for skiing and snowboarding are Mount Buller, Mount Hotham and Falls Creek.

Mount Buller’s general manager Noel Landry says fresh dumps of natural snow are being topped up with machine-made efforts.Credit: Justin McManus

Mount Buller’s resort infrastructure is owned by Grollo Group, a family-owned property developer responsible for many of Melbourne’s landmarks, including the Rialto Tower.

Vail Resorts, a giant North American ski resort operator, manages both Hotham and Falls Creek, plus their sister location at Perisher, NSW. Colorado-based Vail operates 42 winter resorts around the globe, including Whistler in Canada and Keystone, Beaver Creek and Jackfrost in the US.

Both owners say the ski resort industry’s prospects still look bright. They are banking on sophisticated snowmaking machines and boosting summer mountain activities to overcome the growing climate-related threat.

Mt Buller’s Whitehorse Chalets.Credit:

“We’ve invested a lot of money on snowmaking,” said Lorenz Grollo, whose company recently renewed a 75-year lease over the lifts and other resort infrastructure at Buller.

The Grollos are responsible for many of the chalets and much of infrastructure built at the site over the past 30 years, including the Buller Chalet Apartments, Chalet Hotel, Abom Apartments, The Stable and, more recently, Kooroorah and Whitehorse Village.

“As you can see from the snow cams, there’s product on the ground. We certainly aim to have at least four or five lifts open with no natural snow,” Grollo said.

The prospect of shorter ski seasons has not deterred Grollo Group’s enterprise. Having operated Buller for decades, they are doubling down on their alpine investments after spying an opportunity to cater for the lift workers, drivers, cooks, cleaners and other staff needed to keep the resorts running smoothly.

Branching out earlier this year, the family bought Hotham Airport, Australia’s highest altitude commercial airport near Dinner Plain, for $6.7 million. A company connected to the Grollos has since submitted plans to build a large worker accommodation hub, community space and caretaker residence on land next to the airport.

A few months before the Hotham deal, Grollo Group signed an agreement with power giant AGL to take over Bogong Village, a cluster of buildings halfway between Mount Beauty and Falls Creek once used to house workers on the Kiewa Hydro Electric Scheme. The village’s 27 buildings and tavern will be redeveloped as accommodation for Falls Creek’s workers.

The Grollos are there for the long haul. “We’ve got a long, long tenure [at Buller],” Lorenz Grollo said. “The family’s view is that they believe it’s a good business, and it’s a good year-round proposition.”

While all Victorian resorts have made a slow start to this year’s ski season, recent fresh dumps of natural snow were topped up with machine-made snow as they rushed to open ski lifts in time for the recent school holidays.

Mount Buller’s general manager Noel Landry said that over four of the past five winters the mountain had experienced peak visitor numbers.

‘High elevation resorts are going to be less impacted … it’s really those low ones that are far more vulnerable to climate change.’

ANU researcher Ruby Olsen

“I don’t deny that there’s climate change, but we’re skiing more days now than we were 30 years ago because of snowmaking,” he said. “We have five snow factories that make snow at plus10 degrees.”

“The first week of school holidays was good. It was blue skies. This week’s been a bit quieter because it’s been cloudy. With snow expected this week, we’re pretty excited. But the reality in Australia is you don’t count the snow until it falls,” Landry said.

Like other industries, ski resorts face cost-of-living pressures. “There’s no question that there are cost-of-living issues in some parts of the market, and that was probably there last year as well as this year,” Landry said. “We’re probably about 20 per cent down in terms of visitation over the first couple of weeks,” he said.

Rob Aivatoglou, who grew up on Mount Buller and runs hire business George’s Snow Sports, said: “It’s not different to other years that have had slow starts, to be honest.”

Lorenz GrolloCredit: Jesse Marlow

All resorts are hoping for an influx of skiers, boarders and sightseers, as the recent snap freeze across Victoria provides ideal snowmaking conditions.

Falls Creek general manager Richard Phillips, who runs the Vail-owned resort, said despite the slow start to the season, the cold snap meant the resort had been making snow “day in, day out”, including 54 hours straight at one point.

“Mother Nature has delivered dry and cold weather conditions this season, which has been perfect for snowmaking,” Phillips said. “There’s good natural snowfall in the forecast over the next week.” The resort has eight lifts running.

However, alpine winter playgrounds risk major disruptions and shorter ski seasons if climate pollution levels continue, according to a report released last month by Protect Our Winters Australia and the Australian National University.

ANU researcher and report co-author Ruby Olsson said modelling of three scenarios, low, mid and high emissions, shows the typical 112-day ski season in Australia’s alps could shorten by 28, 44 and 55 days, respectively, by 2050 as carbon levels rise.

“High elevation resorts are going to be less impacted than low elevation resorts. It’s really those low ones that are far more vulnerable to climate change,” Olsen said.

All Australia’s ski resorts have a good chance of adapting under a low-emission scenario, but lower elevation resorts such as Buller and Stirling would struggle under a mid-scenario, and high emissions would make it difficult for any resort to provide winter tourism, she said.

Ski resort operators are also diversifying to counter the climate threat. In North America, they earn about 10 per cent of their annual revenue from summer activities, Landry said.

Falls Creek is already a popular mountain bike destination in summer, Buller this year opened a guided “clip and climb” RockWire course on the summit, and Hotham has plans to become a summer walking hub.

The chalets and lodges at Hotham, Falls Creek and Buller – popular with both winter skiers and summer visitors – are nestled among snow gums in the state’s national parks, limiting development and keeping numbers in tight supply.

Alpine real estate agent John Castran said property transactions in the regions are buoyant.

“Sales in Dinner Plane are slightly less than last year because it was off such a high base. Hotham is probably doing better on the number of transactions for this time of the year than Buller,” he said.

Snow guns are pumping out powder as the season kick into gear.Credit: Justin McManus

The accommodation is also expensive compared to Melbourne’s median house price, which was just over $1 million in March, according to Domain data. A luxury five-bedroom chalet advertised in Summit Road, Mount Buller, will set a buyer back $6.75 million.

Top-end real estate in Hotham is more affordable, where the Revelstoke Lodge on Skyline Terrace is asking $2.75 million.

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