Skiing started on Mount Buller 100 years ago. It was very different

The first time I skied Mount Buller, it was in the fog – not unusual for an Australian mountain. What surprised my young eyes was seeing someone emerging from the mist and riding the same drag lift as me but coming from the other direction. Was I on the right track here?

I was on the ridge of a big mountain, where runs of varying pitch and length peel off either side, before the ridge eventually leads to the summit. It initially had two lift companies and two ski schools with an odd assortment of lifts; now there’s just one operator, with (mostly) streamlined lifts and sophisticated snowmaking operations to give some security to snow cover.

Snowboarder in the snow gums, Mount Buller.Credit: Andrew Railton

Now when I ski the mountain, it’s sometimes on a day trip, sometimes during a stay of a few days. Wherever possible, I avoid weekends – they’re hectic – whereas a mid-week day trip is simple. I can pick a good day, hop in the car and have boots on and be riding my first lift just 3½ hours after leaving home.

Spare a thought, then, for the first skiers, members of the Ski Club of Victoria, who made their way to Mount Buller from Melbourne a century ago, on June 8, 1924.

On that first adventure, the party set out early from Mansfield, making their way to Klingsporn’s farm, not far from the current resort entry gate. From there, about 8am, they started the hike up the mountain, through the soaring alpine ash forests and their ferny undergrowth, then the gnarly snow gums, emerging above the treeline at around noon to follow a spur towards the summit.

“Carrying skis made the going very tiresome,” Gerald Rush, one of the party wrote, and “for a few minutes the mist lifted a little, and we had a glorious view of the snowy summit.”

Ski Club of Victoria members show their style at a hut on the BogongHigh Plains in the 1930s.Credit: Ski Club of Victoria/Tyler Collection

They didn’t make the summit on that trip, but did when they returned on July 6 that year. Things got serious in August 1924, when Rush and a few others took a week-long skiing trip to Buller. They caught the 7.30am Albury train from Melbourne, hopped off in Tallarook and changed trains for Mansfield, where they arrived about 2pm, leaving for the mountain before dawn the following day.

They used packhorses for their gear and made their way to the only accommodation on the mountain – a hut built by the Lovick family for summer cattle work on what is now known as Burnt Hut Spur. The hut measured about three by two metres, with a fireplace at one end and a floor of “black mother earth … five feet [1.5 metres] below the level of snow outside.”

It was shelter enough though, and the party were captivated by the mountain – “we simply lived on our skis, exploring every nook of the upper part of the mountain … we experienced all the joys of this wonderful sport,” Rush said. “At sunrise and sunset it is unforgettably majestic.”

Gerald Rush, at right, Ted Tyler, centre, and one other on a ski trip in the 1930s.Credit: Ski Club of Victoria/Tyler Collection

Mount Buffalo, then many hours further north, had been the main skiing destination, but recognising their edge in access, it was the Mansfield Progress Association that dangled the bait for Buller in front of the SCV’s members. The local newspaper, the Mansfield Courier, followed, declaring that “on account of its accessibility and handiness to Melbourne ... it should rapidly become a very popular mountain for winter sports.”

A skier in the alpine ash forests, Mount Buller.Credit: Tony Harrington

They were right about that. From maybe a dozen skiers in that first year, this year, depending on snow cover, Buller can expect about 450,000 winter visitors (in 2022, there were 452,439; but 318,385 in a poorer 2023 winter). It is the engine room for Victorian snow sports, with more than double the winter visitors of Falls Creek or Mount Hotham.

The Progress Association had great foresight – where agriculture and forestry were initially the major economic drivers for the region, tourism is now the No.1 earner in the Mansfield Shire.

From basic shelter, then rough and ready caravans, club lodges and chalets in the early years, Mount Buller has evolved to host a smart alpine village, nestled among the snow gums and rising along that big ridge. The Ski Club of Victoria has been a constant in all those years.

For decades, as well as accommodating its members, the SCV was the governing body for competitive skiing in Victoria, to be knocked from that pedestal by a coalition of rival clubs in 1955. Its fortunes have come and gone like the seasons, but it’s back to full strength now, with about 1600 members.

Look over the Mount Buller alpine village to the summit beyond.Credit: Tony Harrington

General manager Pamela Durnin says growth has been especially strong post-pandemic, with ski racing organised by the club a major lure, along with the joy in sharing a common interest and access to accommodation at reasonable prices.

I found myself at the Ski Club of Victoria some years ago. I worked for a time as a ski patroller and another of my visits to Mount Buller was for our on-snow exams. The first two days were in perfect conditions – fresh snow and sunshine for the rescue-sled handling and skiing components.

The skiing was on some steeper terrain off the Summit, a run called Fanny’s Finish, just inside the patrolled boundary – the Summit Chutes, possibly Australia’s most challenging terrain, lie just beyond. Fanny’s skied perfectly on the day, the right amount of snow and the right quality of cover. When you’re young and strong and confident, skiing the steeps is an extraordinary experience, something like free-falling, just on the right side of being in control.

That night there was a dinner at the Whitt, the SCV’s Ivor Whittaker Memorial Lodge which was, and remains, something of a social centre for the mountain. It was attended by ski patrollers from all over Australia, got a bit wild and went quite late. Walking back to my room, the weather turned, bringing light rain on a fairly ferocious wind.

The next morning, universally dusty from dinner, we gathered for the final part of the exam – a test of our ability on cross-country skis, the skinny ones that offer very little in the way of control on a downhill run. We all got through the uphill and cross-hill bits without incident, on the way to the designated downhill run – Boggy Creek. Turns out the name is accurate.

With the snow heavy from moisture, the chief examiner took off to show us how it was done. He made it about 100 metres down and fell. His acolytes followed and they lasted about 75 metres. So rather than go one-by-one and have them closely scrutinise our technique, the 30-odd examinees took off together. We started falling at about 20 metres and were all down by 50. Nevertheless, we all passed.

There are two points here. One, they can still take their role seriously, but most people have a lot of fun above the snowline. Two, Buller is an Australian mountain – conditions can be perfect one day and dodgy the next, yet even in the wet it’s a beautiful environment, particularly when you’re among the trees, the scent of the snow gums and alpine ash mixing with the sharp alpine air.

Buller has that in common with them all, but it is unique in other ways. For example, it is the only one of the five major Australian snow resorts where the key businesses – lifts, snowsports schools, food and beverage and property interests – remain in family hands, namely Melbourne’s Grollo family.

The US giant Vail Resorts owns Falls Creek, Mount Hotham and Perisher; Thredbo is in the hands of the ASX-listed EVT Limited (Event Hospitality and Entertainment), but Buller’s actual owners are on the ground and deeply involved with all aspects of its operations.

Buller also has a community of extraordinary depth, with a massive roster of returning seasonal and permanent staff who live locally or on the mountain itself, bringing their energy and passion for snow sports and life above the snowline. Many of its businesses sprung from the drive of post-war migrants; many of its visiting families are in their third or fourth generation of connection with the mountain.

It’s easy to dismiss skiing as the domain of the wealthy – it is an expensive pursuit, no mistaking that, but so are most sports once you get serious about them. And if that’s the only prism with which you view the snow, you miss all there is in its broader community.

Take Mount Buller’s Jakara Anthony, the current Olympic and World Cup champion mogul skier. “It’s just a lovely story,” her mother, Sue, says, “She’s just a staff kid. Her gear was hand-me-down gear. I can’t even remember when she got her first pair of her own skis.”

She had parents who simply loved the snow – they met at Mount Buller in the 1980s, Sue a ski lift operator and Daryn an oversnow transport driver. When they had children, they found a way to spend the winters on the mountain, with the kids going to the local primary school.

Jakara got her start in competition at the Victorian Interschools snow sports competitions. It has been running at Mount Buller since 1958 and in something of a metaphor for the way the mountain community has evolved, it started as a hit-out between two of Melbourne’s private schools and is now the biggest event of its type in the Southern Hemisphere, with about 6500 entries from 220 schools across the state.

I often wonder how those first skiers from 1924 would react if they saw how the mountain has progressed since they first made tracks on it.

On July 6, there’ll be a community celebration on the mountain, led by the SCV, to mark the day 100 years ago when those pioneers first skied Buller’s summit. See mtbuller.com.au

Jim Darby is the author of Mt Buller, the Story of a Mountain. See nama.org.au/shop