But in 2015, lost it all in one of the biggest drug busts in the NSW snowfields in recent years.

Four months after 28-year-old James* walked free from jail, he has provided a rare insight into the seasonal drug trade that shadows the alpine region every winter.

For many young skiers and snowboarders who turn up in the villages around Thredbo and Perisher each winter, drug use and partying are synonymous with their experience.

James was no exception.

At 25 years old, he was working at a service station by night and hitting the slopes during the day.

The qualified ski instructor smoked cannabis regularly but turned to MDMA to push him through the weekends.

His dependence reached a point where he found himself in debt to two drug suppliers and struggling to fund his own addiction.

“This was a chance to get some good drugs for a very low cost,” he said.

“That’s where I came into it and said ‘let’s take the risk’.”

After many childhood winters spent holidaying in the snow, James was sponsored to travel overseas and compete in international events.

He had spent enough time around the Snowy Mountains, working as a lift operator and in ticket sales at Thredbo and Perisher, to know how the drug market operated.

This included how narcotics were smuggled into the area.

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“It changed case to case — some people might bury it, some people get it sent down in the post, some people drive it down when they come down on holidays,” he said.

“A lot of time it’s people getting it for themselves. If you are a heavy weed smoker, you would drive to Sydney to get a couple of ounces a week and you would run the gauntlet to get it back.”

The drugs were predominantly sourced from Sydney but the prices were inflated because demand outweighed supply.

“The scene down there has been portrayed as this image of drugs all over the snowfields and it’s not,” he said.

“People charge a lot of money for anything down there because there is nothing down there.”

Most deals were bought in small amounts, he said.

“There were single points — you put it in a capsule and that’s what you sell,” he said.

“It wasn’t common for people to come and buy a gram or two grams, but that was about as big as it got.

“All types of people in different professions from seasonal workers to tradies to doctors to lawyers (were using).

“It is not like the amount being a huge amount of money. It is all pretty broke people; it is the classic snow bums.

“They are not getting charged more because they have the money to pay for it.

“It’s market mechanics as much as anything. It is not like a kingpin is in town.”

Midway through the season in 2015, James agreed to help a mate who had been supplying drugs to a few people in town.

James travelled to Canberra, picked up an assortment of drugs, and drove the haul back to Jindabyne.

He waited in the car while another man organised the exchange of 681 grams of MDMA, 284 grams of cocaine and 56 grams of ice for $190,000.

Tactical police swarmed the Bullocks Flat Skitube station car park moments later, arresting James and another man after months of surveillance.

James said he didn’t want to deal ice but the buyers — who were undercover police officers — were throwing money at them.

“Even in our case we said we didn’t want to deal ice, we said to them we aren’t comfortable selling the drug,” he said.

“We don’t use it but at the same time they are sitting there throwing buckets of cash and what can you do?

“The undercovers ask you how much it is going to cost to get the drugs. Money is no object for them.

“And the more they ask, the more money they throw at you, the more you consider it.

“It stings you for years and years of your life but they have endless amounts of money at their disposal.

“Every week the police were buying. These police had plenty of money at the point where there had been 10 weeks of always having the money.

“They had stories of why they were there and why they wanted it.

“They said one of them ran a brothel in Sydney and they had a friend down the South Coast who was splitting it with them.”

Codewords like “cheeseburgers” and “fries” were used in conversations about the drug transactions, a strategy James believes in hindsight showed a lack of experience.

“A lack of experience in these types of things left us naive and susceptible to that sort of entrapment,” he said.

“When you really break it down and look at it, there were so many indicators of inexperience and getting in way over our heads. The consequences for it have been horrible.”

James, who provided The Sunday Telegraph with an insight into his offending in return for anonymity, was sentenced to at least 2½ years jail.

* James is a pseudonym.