As the Antarctic Vortex maintains its icy stranglehold on southeast Australia, meet the two little ski hills that missed all the fun

THE Antarctic Vortex delivered most resorts exactly what they wanted this week: snow and loads of it. But this forlorn little ski resort didn’t get a flake.

SERIOUSLY, though. How unlucky can you get?

As Australia’s mainland resorts bask in up to 50cm of fresh snow from this week’s cold outbreak, with more to come in the next two days, spare a thought for Tassie’s little ski resorts.

Maybe you didn’t even know you could ski in Tasmania. Well, you can. There are two options for downhill enthusiasts. One is Ben Lomond, a commercial centre near Launceston with seven old-fashioned clanking ski lifts of one type or another.

The other, more backwoods option, is Mount Mawson, not too far from Hobart. It’s a club field that relies on volunteer labour to man its rudimentary rope tows.

Right now, neither hill has any skiable snow. The so-called Antarctic Vortex (a phrase for this weather system coined by news.com.au and copied by pretty much everyone) pretty much just whooshed on past.

“Yeah, we heard about that we haven’t seen it yet,” says Felicity Foot from Ben Lomond Snow Sports.

“We don’t really know why. It’s just gone, zoooop, straight across Tasmania. The mainland got it, New Zealand got it and we in Tasmania got sweet FA to put it mildly.”

Ahem.

Despite the snow drought (note to readers and editor: in future we may call this a “snought”), Ben Lomond has been able to make a little snow from its snowguns, so visitors are happily tobogganing away and having a few beginner ski lessons.

But the lifts, for now, remain silent.

“Moisture is the problem,” Felicity Foot says. “We’ve had minus 3, minus 5, minus 7, but just haven’t had the moisture when it’s been cold.”

As for when the snow will arrive and the lifts grind into action, nobody can tell. “I don’t even look at the snow forecast. It’s full of lies,” Felicity Foot says.