What happened to Mt. Buller?

I went all the way to Australia, at Mt. Buller, to teach skiing during the winters of 1971 and 1972 and have kept fond memories of that place. 

At that time, they were two lift operators on the mountain; the Blue and the Orange Lifts. The former had the French ski school, the latter the Austrian ski school. Both companies eventually merged in 1985 when the owner of the Blue Lifts, purchased half of the Orange Lifts and formed the Bourke Street Ski Lift Company. 

Snow is pretty elusive in Australia and there are a few good, but many poor seasons. Mt. Buller’s base is at 1375 meters (4,511 ft) and its top lift reaches 1780 meters (5440 ft), so don’t dream of running a World Cup downhill there! This said, there are some good steep runs and the local wet snow holds very well. 

The resort counts over 22 lifts, serving 300 ha (740 acre) of terrain and boasts 80 km of trails. In terms of skier-days, count on 300 to 400,000 depending on the season. Australia claims 1 million skiers and around 2 million skier-days, which says a lot about frequency… 

The Ski Club of Victoria (SCV) is at the origin of the resort and envisioned the development of the village while developing lifts, ski school and ski patrol. The Club, founded in 1924, built its hut near Boggy Creek in 1933, and a rope tow on Bourke Street in 1949. Last year, a brand new detachable 6-pack was added to more than other 20 lifts on the mountain. 

At about that time, in the early 50s, John Hilton-Wood, our former boss, and his wife Marjorie, installed a portable rope tow on Bull Run to serve the needs of the better skier. It was later replaced in 1955 with a permanent lit which ran longer into steeper terrain. 

Hilton-Wood, who passed away at age 90, in 2016, eventually developed more lifts and formed Bull Run Enterprises, with their blue lift towers, installed a lift on Skyline run and brought over French instructors to teach Aussies the proper way to ski. 

This past season was terrible, as snow never seemed to make it, and the resort got shut down for good on August 8 because of a resurgence of Covid-19 around Melbourne, Mt. Buller’s feeder market. Hopefully 2021 will be much better in order to keep the ski resort alive.