Charlotte Pass ski resort in NSW closes before all other resorts despite having way more snow

IT’S always a struggle for Aussie ski resorts to make it from June to October with enough snow. So why has this resort closed with a 2m base?

THE NSW and Victorian school holidays start this weekend. For some lucky families, that’ll mean a trip to the snow, which is still in pretty good nick at the higher Australian ski resorts despite a mostly snowless couple of months since the megablizzards of July.

But there’s one resort which won’t be open despite having the most snow in Australia. In fact it closed last Sunday, September 14.

Its runs remain beautifully covered but if you want to ski, you’ll need to leg it up the hill yourself.

Charlotte Pass last weekend, the final two days when lifts were open for season 2014.

The resort is Charlotte Pass is NSW, which we wrote about earlier this year when it reached a balmy minus 16 one morning.

Charlotte Pass bills itself as Australia’s highest ski resort, which is sort of true and sort of not. It is true that it’s the highest village at 1760 metres. But the top of the lifts are about 100 metres lower than nearby Thredbo or Perisher.

Yes, this was last weekend too.

What you can say without fear about Charlotte Pass is that it gets the most snow in Australia. Its official depth peaked at about 1.7 metres this year and is now at about 1.2 metres. But there are still snow drifts around the resort where there is two metres of snow, or even more.

So why has it closed? Well, we contacted the resort but no one got back to us. The resort closes a little early each year, and in all likelihood it’s an access thing. Charlotte Pass is quite isolated.

Yep, also last weekend.

The road from Perisher is closed each year until October, which means you can only reach the village via a slow, clunky oversnow vehicle. The trip’s great fun when you’re doing a week’s skiing in midwinter, but it clearly seems like too much of a hassle for people having a quick ski in sunny September.

That’s a shame really, because while some Aussie ski resorts are pushing snow around to keep the main trails open, little old Charlotte Pass sits there with all this snow just going to waste.

This is one the smaller Aussie ski resorts last weekend. You can see why it closed.

Anyway, if you are desperate for a ski, the main Victorian resorts should make it till the end of September, while Thredbo and Perisher in NSW have officially extended the season all the way through to October 10.

And this, as the date stamp shows, is Charlotte Pass on Friday afternoon, five days after closing. Pic: ski.com.au.