Self reliance on the slopes.

Skiing in Australia might seem rather like sunbathing in Britain, but just as there are actually beaches in the UK, so there are indeed ski slopes to be enjoyed in Australia. And the Australian skiing industry has been around for quite a while in its own quiet little way. In some sections of the Australian community, it is an annual feature to have a trip to the ski slopes in August or September.

The industry lives in terror of global warming, which is forecast to reduce the amount of snow available. However, since even the most rabid statist accepts that there is no way for the government to change the climate, the Australian ski industry has conceded that there’s no point pestering the government about it, and have decided instead to do something about it.

But the crucial factor in sustaining the industry is an increase in, and better application of, snow-making.

“Each of the resorts told us what type of depth they would like throughout the year, and we were able to use a model to show that that profile throughout the year would tend to become lower, and to compensate for that they would need to invest in between 11 and 200 per cent more snow guns,” says Hennessy.

Colin Hackworth, managing director of Australian Alpine Enterprises, which runs the Victorian snowfields at Mount Hotham and Falls Creek, says snow-making is now vital to attracting crowds.

“As the industry has embraced snow-making, we have been able to provide a more consistent product, which has given people more comfort when booking a ski holiday,” he says.

Hackworth says snow-making technology continues to improve and artificial snow can now be produced at up to 10C.

It’s not the only challenge that the Australian ski-industry faces, but once again they are trying to solve their own problems, rather then whine about it.

It’s funny how that happens, isn’t it?