This (Skiing) Life

Skiing in Australia is unpredictable, bank account-draining and there’s no Wi-Fi. But I love it.

A skier at Mt Hotham.

There’s a blizzard happening outside. The roads require snow chains and the eucalypts are covered in sticky snow. I’m in a loft-style apartment at Dinner Plain, 12km from Victoria’s Mount Hotham and 374 kilometres from Melbourne.

The morning email from the resort says it’s minus four degrees outside and only four chairlifts are open due to high winds. It’s been snowing since we got here but there’s not enough coverage for the whole resort to be enjoyed. As there’s only a few runs open, school holiday makers are crammed into the same narrow chutes and the queue for the Audi-sponsored quad chairlift is heaving.

This is skiing in Australia and I love it. It’s unpredictable, bank account-draining and there’s no Wi-Fi. It’s codesigned to make your heart sing when snow is plentiful and the sky is blue. Scarcity equals desire.

After posting an Instagram story of gum trees dusted in snow, a friend who grew up in Cooma, NSW messaged me: “Love this quintessential Aussie alpine image. It’ll always be my home.” The palette of grey trunks, soft, dirty greens and clumps of snow are familiar and yet so strange in the world — a high country of stunted eucalypts and snow wallabies.

I’ve been thinking about skiing (especially in Australia) and how it’s the most artificial activity there is and yet it’s pure leisure.

Sure Hotham has a mobile app where riders can compete against each other on a leaderboard for miles and runs completed. But skiing cannot be mediated through a screen, and you can’t browse a second screen while doing it. (My Instagram shots were taken on the chairlift, the approved moment for small talk and selfies.)

To ski, you must move down a hill with your feet, knees and thighs. Focus is required to navigate a manufactured landscape. Each morning the snow (often man-made) is tilled into a corduroy texture by machinery on runs that have been cleared of trees, while chairlifts whirr and grind above. The outerwear required is completely removed from the everyday. The alpine environment demands high-performance, weather-defying kit. Helmets are worn on heads; polarised goggles protect eyes. Thick plastic boots are clicked into graphite planks. While metal poles with canvas straps are looped over wrists for balance.

Skiing is not just greedy for space and equipment. It gobbles time. You can’t dip in or out of it in ten-second bursts. It demands weekends and Monday-to-Friday long excursions for families, packs of teenagers, friends and school groups.

Cozy inside our Dinner Plains apartment, the flashing lights of a snow plough are reflected in the windows. Our family is ruddy-cheeked from cold winds and currently burning through mobile data, watching Minecraft videos on YouTube. Skiing (and not skiing) in Australia’s high country is a rare, ersatz pleasure.

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