Lists of early ski buildings & a rough draft of history of ski clubs in Vic.

A miscellany of incomplete work that I don’t have the time or resources to complete.

Assistance to get sections finished would be appreciated, please email me.

Ski club miscellany

Contents

Early ski buildings. Tas, Vic, ACT (incomplete), NSW (incomplete)

A history of ski clubs in Victoria (and a little on other states). Unfinished rough draft of an article

List of Victorian ski clubs by date established. Almost complete,

Ski clubs in Tasmania. Brief history and a list of clubs.

Choosing a ski club. A few things to consider when working out a shortlist.

Early ski buildings

This page aims to list ski related buildings in areas that have become resorts or once were ski resorts. At the moment this page is a very incomplete draft under development. The aim is to eventually have a reasonable list of buildings constructed in most Australian ski resorts before about 1970. However if the ski lift directory is any guide, it may take many years of research before it lists almost every building. If you want to know more about a particular resort or time period, send me a message and I may be able to do work on that area or at least provide more information.

Additions and corrections are very welcome, please send them to australianmountains (at) gmail.com

For details of non ski related mountain huts see the KHA's lists of mountain huts in all ski states. It is not being updated, but is still an excellent resource

A quick note on the dates. This list orders buildings by the first ski season they were occupied, so a building that was largely completed in late 1950, would still be listed as 1951. Things are arranged that way because in many cases it's almost impossible to find out what month a building was habitable (if not quite finished), but ski magazines, newsletters and provincial newspapers tended to announce things like 'the first skiers stayed at the new Xxxx Ski Club lodge on Kings Birthday weekend this year'. So a building that may have been substantially built in late 1950, (or had a permit that was issued in 1950),  will appear on this list as first used in the 1951 ski season. It's also worth noting that before the mid 1960s, clubs often used partly finished buildings that were incomplete shells in their first winter and finished fitting them out the following summer.

Tasmania.

Ben Lomond

Carr Villa area

1932. Carr Villa (built by NTAC, extended 1933. Donated to Rover Scouts 1963 and then further extended.) 1933, Himminborg (400 m east of Carr Villa, built by Gilbert McKinley & Reg Hall). Donated to Launceston Scotch College in 1960s?).

Legges Tor area

1937. Summit Hut (also known as Monds Chalet and later as The Kremlin. Built by NTAC, extended in 1940 and 1948 when it slept 31. Sold in 1971). 1938 Chateau Dumitchmill (named after owner builders Dumaresq, Mitchell & Mills. extended 1950. Film of its construction). 1950. McWigs (also a hybrid of owners names). 1951. Zermatt real estate ad. 1952. Big Rock ski storage hut. 1955. Ben Bullen (originally Championship Lodge). 1961. Ben Bothie.

Ben Lomond Village area

1969. Foresters Ski Club (burnt 1990, rebuilt 1991). 1969. Currawong (Eryl Williams). 1969. Talaria Ski Club. 1970. Rumdoodle. 1970 Edelweiss. 1970. Frederick Smithies Lodge (N.T.A.C.) (extended 71 - 72) 1971. Kunama Ski Club (extended 1972). 1971 Jackson's Hole. 1972. Public shelter & ski patrol base. (aka Tin Shed, extended c. 1974.) 1974. Shusha. 1976. Ski Rentals building. 1978. Bag End. 1978. Bellenda. 1978. Birubi - St George Ski Club. 1978 Borrowdale. 1979? Toorbunna Ski Club. 1979 Northern Tasmanian Alpine Club (burnt 1996, rebuilt 1997). 1985 Creek Inn Tavern, now Ben Lomond Alpine Hotel. (6 flats added 1987, hostel added 1993). 1991 new Foresters Ski Club. 1994, Legges Tor Public Shelter. 1994 Felix Hut (Race Hut). 1997. new N.T.A.C. 1997. Rovers Ski Club.

More on Ben Lomond history. David M. Harvey. The Ben Lomond Story. The author, 2000.

30 Second run named by in November 1931 when a party including Fred Smithies skied on a late spring snowdrift near Legges Tor with the descent of the drift taking exactly half a minute.

Mt Mawson and Mt Field area

1908 circa, First hut at Lake Fenton. Used by skiers from 1921, possibly earlier. By 1928 there were five huts. All but one were moved to Lake Dobson in 1940

1927. Twilight Tarn Hut built by Ski Club of Tasmania. Australia's first building owned by a ski club. 1936. Lake Newdgate Hut (S.C.T.)

1940. Old University Hut. First hut at current ski area. 1945. Hobart Walking Club lodge at Lake Dobson. 1946. Alpine Club at Eagle Tarn. 1949. Wellington Ski Club. 1950-ish Ski Club of Tasmania at Lake Dobson, 1950s Lake Dobson Public Shelter. 1957 circa Refuge Hut on Golden Stairs next to Cumming Ski Tow.

1963. Sitzmark Lodge. Used for ski hire, kiosk, first aid and as a public shelter.. The top floor of the building was also used for accommodation by kiosk staff, ski patrol and park staff in winter.   (Condemned 1998 and finally demolished 2013, replaced by two unheated shipping containers.) Mid 1960s. Mawson, Oldina and new University lodges built on ski slopes. Mid 1970s. Rodway Shelter Hut, Ticket and Belt issue Hut. 2019 New Sitzmark Lodge (as yet unnamed). Built by state government to replace the squalid shipping containers.

The road reached Lake Dobson in summer 1937-38. (ANZ SY 1938 p131). The 'Jeep Track' was built up to the tows in the early to mid 1960s.

Mt Rufus

A few ski buildings were erected at Mt Rufus (near the hamlet of Derwent Bridge) during hydro construction in the area in the late 1940s and early 50s. Two of these remain; Joe Slatter Hut and Gingerbread Hut, a planned ski tow engine hut that is still in use as a hikers refuge. After the end of hydro construction the local population wasn't sufficient to sustain these plans and the local ski club merged with the Hobart based Wellington Ski Club. An ambitious plan to build a ski resort with chairlifts and poma lifts linked to the Lyell Highway by a gondola was released in the early 1970s, but nothing was ever built.

Victoria.

Mt Donna Buang (complete)

1920s Summit hut. 1930 Melbourne Walking Club lodge (burnt 1939). c.1933 Shelter hut at base of Main Run (probably burnt 1939)  1934 University Ski Club lodge (moved to Buller 1950) 1934 Ski Club of Victoria lodge (collapsed c.1970s) 1934 Luscombe’s Hut. 1936? Rover Scout Hut (fate unknown). 1930s. Kiosks at summit and 10 Mile Turntable, first aid huts at ditto, Eric Gravbrot Johnson's ski hire hut. 10 Mile toilet block. 1940 Replacement MWC hut. 1960s Kiosk at 10 mile. c.1975 Doorless summit shelter. c.1975 10 Mile Turntable shelter (demolished 2016). 1980s? Summit toilet block.

A comprehensive history of the mountain with 100 photos and maps: Donna Buang: the forgotten ski resort is also on this website.

Mt Feathertop (complete)

1906 Shelter Shed (demolished 1912). 1912 Feathertop Hut (collapsed 1980). 1925 Feathertop Bungalow guesthouse (burnt 1939). 1929 Razorback Hut (burnt 1939). 1965 MUMC Memorial Hut. 1969 (Old) Federation Hut (burnt 2003). 2004 (New) Federation Hut

A history of Mt Feathertop and its buildings is at http://www.australianmountains.com/feathertop/ 

Mt Wills

1948. Tallangatta Ski Club's Woolybutt Lodge. 1952. Tallangatta Ski Club Snowgum Hut near summit. 19XX Fire observers cabin. 19XX new summit hut

Upper Murray

1950-ish. Lind Lodge on Six Mile Plateau. UMSC lodge on Blowfly Ridge.

Mt Buffalo

Manfield Chalet and two or three other tourist accommodation business.

1911 Buffalo Chalet. Multiple extensions including doubling height front facade added circa 1939. Abandoned 2007, mostly still standing, but entry is deemed unsafe.

Two other commercial guesthouses operating circa 1920 but forced to close after the railways took over the lease fro the 1925 ski season.

1920s Horn Hut. Still in use until at least 1949, probably much later.

Keown Hut at Dingo Dell.

1960s Polasek and Clarkes Tatra Inn (later Buffalo Lodge) burnt 2006. 

Mt Hotham area

Early ski accommodation in the Hotham area

1863 St Bernard Hospice Mk 1. (aka Mother Morell's). c.1882 Mother Johnson's (Brandy Creek, abandoned late 1890's). 1884 St Bernard Hospice Mk. 2 (aka Sailor Bill Boustead's). 

1921 Rundell's Alpine Lodge (Flour Bag Plain, an old mining hotel renovated and partly rebuilt for tourists in 1921 & burnt 1928). 1925 Hotham Heights Mk 1 (burnt 1939, walls used as a garage frame until 1970s). c.1925. Diamantina Hut Mk 1. (Burnt in 1939 wildfires). 1925 St Bernard Hospice Mk 3 (renovated and partly rebuilt 1925, burnt 1939). 1938 Ward-Ambler cabin, east of Rene's Lookout (burnt 1939). 

1939 Hotham Heights Mk 2. (extended 1956, burnt 1.00 - 2.00 am, 30 September 1976). c.1941. Diamantina Hut Mk 2. (demolished 1967 and replaced with the current A-frame hut). 1946 Alpine Club of Victoria, 1946. Wangaratta Ski Club (at Mt St Bernard). 1947 Edelweiss Ski Club. 1947. Cosray Hut (aka CSIR Hut?). 1949 University Ski Club. Joyce Brockhoff Memorial Cabin. 

1950 Boondoo Ski Club (one source says 1952). 1951 Drift Chalet. 1952.  1953 Murray Valley Ski Club (at Diamantina). Ski Club of East Gippsland Hut, extended 1957, 1959 & 1971. Demolished 1988 Renamed 'Annexe' after SCEG Lodge built in 1961. 1954. Seth Ski Club was planning to build on Loch Spur, but that didn't eventuate.

In 1955 'The Hotham area has six club lodges, two commercial chalets and a commercial ski tow. The accommodation available at the chalets is approximately 70 to 80 and that amongst the club lodges approximately 70. The road from Harrietville is snow plowed at least to St. Bernard normally throughout the season and on the Omeo side as far as Wire Plain for the major part of the season.' (Ski Horizon 8/1955 p.19)

1960 - 1969

1961. Ski Club of East Gippsland Lodge, extended 1983, 1988.

1969. McMillan Ski Club. Extended c.1972, 1980, 1999.

1970 - 1979

1976. Asgaard Alpine Club.

1970s?. Burrumbeep Ski Club. 

1970s?. Kalyna Ski Club.

1970s?. Tantani. Along with Asgaard, demolished for new development circa 2016.

In addition to these lodges and hotels, there have been numerous cattleman's, miners, tourist and road patrol huts.

Hotham ski run names.

The Orchard. This run has moved. When Brockhoff Hut was built in 1949, it was described as being 'at The Orchard'

Pink Hamberg. Named after 1930s skiers Mr Lou Pink and Mrs Hamberg, it was their favourite run and they may have pioneered skiing on it. 

More on Hotham history:

Donald Bennett. Hotham horizon: the Alpine Club of Victoria. The author, 1987.

Jennifer McLennan. Not below 5000: a history of the Ski Club of East Gippsland. S.C.E.G., 2001.

Lynette Sheridan. University Ski Club: 1929 - 1979. U.S.C., 1988.

Gillian Salmon. The king of Hotham: my father. Lindsay Salmon - the Drift Chalet - Mount Hotham. Gillian Magnabosco, 2013.

Dinner Plain

1986. Dinner Plain Hotel. Opened 8 June 1986.

1986. Fords Lodge. Now High Plains

1986. Belltrees. 147 Geebung Road

1986. Jackie Johnson. 156 & 165 Big Muster Drive

1986. Hinnomunjie. Next to pub.

1986. Rivendell. 146 Geebung Road

1986. Wattle Circle (Chamonix). 1671 Drybone Lane

Bogong High Plains

Dedicated ski huts only.

1929. Cope Hut.

1940. Rover Chalet.

1946-ish. Johnstons Hut, Mt Nelse. Built 1925 by graziers, sold to Telemark Ski Club c.1946 and converted to ski hut. Merged with Ski Club of East Gippsland 1966. Burnt 17 May 1976, rebuilding to same plan, completed on 30 May 1976.

Falls Creek

Early buildings at Falls Creek. This list is very incomplete and is still rather rough. Any better information would be appreciated, please send it to australianmountains (at) gmail.com

In addition to hydro buildings and mountain cattlemen's huts, the following lodges were built in the early decades of Falls Creek:

Early ski buildings near Falls Creek

1929. Cope Hut. Built by state government specifically for skiers. Photo to the left.
1939 - 40. Rover Chalet. on Bogong High Plains. Extended many times, still extensively used.

1940s

1940 Bogong Ski Club at Rocky Valley (burnt 1944). 
1946 SEC Cottage (St Elmo-Beveridge's hut.) sold and removed to Toonalook at end of 1953. 
1947 - c.1973?, Skyline Lodge 1947-1973,
1947-1948 Ski Club of Victoria (relocated to become Red Hut which was burnt in 2003),
1947? Bogong Ski Club
1948, St Elmo-Beveridge's house
1948 , Albury Ski Club (burnt 1959, rebuilt 1960),
1948, Myrtleford Ski Club. 
1949, Red Hut aka Spion Kopje Lodge (½ way b/w Howmans & Falls) (burnt in 2003 wildfires). 

Dawn Ski Club 1950? (later Rocky Valley S.C.), Grande Coeur 1950? burnt 1961, Nissen Lodge 1952.

1955. St. Trinian's, Bowna, ?Snowdon Ski Club?

Holbrook Ski Club [NSW} was planning to build in 1955.

Mid and late 1950's buildings include: Snow Crystal (since demolished & rebuilt), Nelse <1958 (extended c.1964, demolished & rebuilt 198?), Gundamurri, St Trinians, Kiewa Valley S.C., T & T (Transport & Trading) store (2 x old SEC huts on Winterhaven site, extended many times in the last 60 years), Diana Lodge, Galleon (ex SEC building, aka Cooroona), Bowna S.C., Mulligatawny (burnt c. 1956, replaced by Limlimbu), Four Seasons, Snowhaven (on site of Freuauf Village), Frying Pan Inn 1958, Arundel 1959 (extended 1964 & 1976, renamed Julian's in 1971), Snowden (later renamed Rim Rock) 1959.

1953 11 lodges: Albury, Myrtleford, Bogong, Hyman's, Nissen tow house, SCV Skyline, Kiewa Valley, Murray Valley, Galleon Ski Club, Dawn, Morona Towalla. Foundation ready for 1954 building Snowden Ski Club. (Ski Horizon 3/1953 p.11)

1961 Wat Thai 1961, Falls Creek Home Units (later renamed Alcatraz) c.1961 Woomargama S.C. (aka The Roundhouse) 

Rocky Valley Staff Camp (used as ski accom c.1962 until demolished in 1965),

1962. Wagga Alpine Ski Club, extended a couple of times before late 1970s, rebuilt 2020.

Cumming's Ski Hire c.1962, (First) Australian Alpine Club (later Red Onion) 1963, Alpen Rose Flats c.1963, Ripparoo S.C. 1963, Pretty Valley (the top floor was the former mess building at Rocky Valley hydro camp) c.1963,

BSM Ski Club, first winter 1963  or 1964. Founded by employees of the architects Bates Smart and McCutcheon. Club still exists but website is restricted to members

Runaway Lodge c.1964, Molonys ski hire at base of Gully 1964, Lions Club snack bar (on site of St Elmo's first hut) c.1964, Karingal Flats 1964, Geelong S.C. 1964,

Koki c.1965, Avondale (later Feathertop) mid 60's, Pfefferkorn c.1965, Southern Cross Flats 1966, Spargo's (later Halley's) c.1966, The Man 1967 (extended 1978), Kilimanjaro Flats c.1967, Carey Alpine Club c.1967, CSIR S.C. c.1967, Naarilla Flats c.1967, Rainbow Club c.1967, Hukarere (later Alpha) c.1967.

1970's. Haus Innsbruck (called Karelia from '72) 1971, Attunga 1971, Les Chalet flats 1973, (New) Australian Alpine Club c.1972, Vikings S.C., early 1970's, (First) Falls Creek School 1972, The Hub shops 1978, Cedarwood c.1979.

1996. Birkebeiner Nordic Ski Club day lodge at Windy Corner.

More on Falls Creek history:

Julian Newton Brown. Falls Creek: how it came to be. Janby Productions, 2005.

Bob Howe. Melting tracks: history and memories of Albury Ski Club and early Falls Creek. The author, 2004

Mt Buller area.

Early buildings at Buller.

Dates are the first winter of occupation, but a few dates may be a year out. The list is not complete. Italic text indicates a link to a lodge's website.

1880s Klingsporn's Hut on Horse Hill, 

c.1919 Lovick's Hut on Burnt Hut Spur (burnt early 1925, but one source says 1932), 

1925 Mansfield Progress Association Hut on Burnt Hut Spur. Burnt summer 1933, 

1929 Horse Hill bark hut used as construction base for Chalet, 1929 Buller Chalet (Horse Hill, extended 1932 and 1939. Had 67 guest beds. Burnt 1942), 

1930 Cow Camp Hut, located on what became Site 11 of the 1949 village subdivision. (extended 1946, demolished (or burnt?) 1951) [Walk 1955 p.55], 1934 SCV Hut Boggy Creek, (extended 1947, near base of present Grimus chairlift, still standing but little used in 1954, collapsed early 1970s.), Summers says built in 1933. 1934 Koffler's Hut aka Koffler’s Lunch Hut (near current Koffler's cafe). Collapsed in a storm late 1940s.

1941 First summit fire observers hut (replaced 1969), 1943 ‘Shiver Chalet’ on the site of the burnt Mt Buller Chalet. (built from wreckage of the Chalet by either Alan McCubbin or the Junior Ski Club?) 

1946+ Following the destruction of the Chalet in 1942 there was a severe shortage of accommodation. In August 1943 Schuss p.93 noted that ‘on the site of the former chalet at Mt. Buller, there is no shelter whatever there, all former buildings have been removed’ The only facilities for vistors are at Cow Camp Hut and the S.C.V. Hut.’

‘a few enterprising characters took a caravan up to Buller just before the 1946 season and claimed they were unable to get it down due to early snowfalls, and it just happened to provide comfortable quarters for many skiers in 1946. Among them were Jack Beer, Alan Temby and Roy Wicks,’ Ann Crawford 50 years of YHA on Mt Buller, 1997. p.4.

So quite a few unauthorised huts and caravans appeared hidden in the scrub in the mid to late 1940's. Details are understandably vague, at least one hut was disguised with war-surplus camouflage nets. One built in time for the 1946 season was Bogville, Bull Lodge and Ullr were other illegal lodges of the time, as was Hushers Hut located near the old Chalet site. One of the wheeled vehicles was named Calf Caravan.  [Most of this sourced from Ski Horizon magazine]

Notes relating to buildings built at unknown times in the 40s and 50s.

• Box Corner Hut. Measured approx 3 x 5 metres. Attempt made to move it up hill after the first proper subdivision, indicating that it may possibly have belonged to people involved in a club that got one of those early legal sites. [photo CSIR p. 33.]

• A caravan belonging to Stan Clarke was kept near what became known as Caravan Corner. Later it was moved uphill to become an annex of CSIR lodge. [photo CSIR p. 36]

• 'Junior Ski Club has made extensive additions to its lodge at the Old Chalet site.' Note in Ski Horizon 8/1955 p.3. Photo in either White Roof of Aust or Aust Snow Pictorial

• ‘1949 at Buller was the occasion of the Merton Hall hut fire. The Scotch boys were able to demonstrate their prowess by becoming firemen for a night.’ Koomerang SKi Club History (part 1). p. 7. This is the only reference I have ever seen to a Merton Hall (Melbourne Girls Grammar) Hut, so more information is required to be confident that it once existed.

• At the Easter 1957 {Koomerang] work party, Liz McDonald (Trace) and her mother Lottie prepared meals in the hut of the Melbourne Tech Ski Club, a small building with a mud floor and a wood-fired stove. The second Koomerang history document. p. 23.

Authorised lodges

1946 CSIR S. C. (One Tree Hill. Extended 1955, demolished & replaced at present location 1985), Bull Lodge S.C. (Next to site later occupied by Cedar. Bullt illegally, dismantled 1948, club disbanded 1951.) 1947 Ivor Whittacker Lodge (S.C.V. Extended 1949, 1953 & 1959, rebuilt 1967 - 1973. Original building demolished 1972), YHA (aka 'Shiver Shanty' replaced at new location 1952), Circa 1948 Dump Inn (renamed Welcome Inn in 1954, burnt 28 Nov 1955) 1949 Apira (formerly Australian Postal Institute. Extended 1959, 1969, 1983), Chamois S.C., Harding S. C. (M.U.SKI Club from 1961 rebuilt 199?), Moose S.C. (burnt 11/6/55, apparently rebuilt for 1956), Omega S.C., SCV cabins (one was burnt in 1950),

1950 Australian Women's S.C (extended 1957), Buller S.C. (burnt 1952 (report Ski Horizon Aug 52), site to Chetwynd), Gray Rocks S.C., Junior S.C. of Australia (extended 1952), Lazy Eight (to Southern Cross in 1952), University S.C. (cabin moved from Mt Donna Buang, replaced in 1983), Ullr S.C.(rebuilt in 1986), Yurredla S.C. (rebuilt 1979), 1951 Alpine Club of Victoria, Belmore, BMW S.C. (extended 1966 & 1985), Dandenong S.C., Melbourne Walking Club (one source says 1949. Rebuilt in 1992), Monsanto, Morgan Pattern Social Club, 1952 Benmore, Bull Run Canteen, Gliss (extended 1965), Reindeer, Southern Cross demolished and rebuilt date uncertain, YHA, extended 1975, demolished 201X? (replaced 1948 Shiver Shanty), 1953 Cedar (finished just before ski season, burnt early July), Kandahar (extended 1960 replaced 1986), Firn, Kooroora (burnt 1961 rebuilt 1965),1954 Cedar (rebuilt), Double B (Judd claims it was Australias first ski A-frame) Geelong, Timberline (replaced in 1986), Twenty Five Club (burnt September 1955, apparently rebuilt for 1956) 

1955 Breathtaker (Royal Aust Navy S.C. from 1956), Black Tulip, Chetwynd (a circular building on site of burnt Buller S.C. lodge), Elk, Mawson Skiing and Touring.Club. (rebuilt as apartments in 1995), SCV Euroa branch cabin, Welcome Lodge 'day lounge' at Breathtaker Point, sold to RAN Ski Club for 1956 season. (SH 5/55 p8, 11/55 p2) 1956 Akla, Bomborra (replaced 2000), Caribou, Double B (may have been built in 1954), Edelweiss, New Buller Lodge, Tyrol?, University S.C. (second lodge, next to their 1950 one, extended 1962 & rebuilt 1986, extended 2010), 1957 Hima, Igloo, Koomerang (rebuilt 1980. Scotch College), Matterhorn, OLOS S.C., University S. C. Lodge (next to cabin built in 1950), 1958 Arlberg House (burnt 1967. Rebuilt 1970), Mulligatawny, 1959 Cortina, Inca, Koffler's Cafe, Old Geelong Grammarians, Sorrento, Spark, St Albans, Wapiti,

1960 Icicles, Mt Buller Lodge, N'Everest (extended 1983), Pontresina / Engadin, SCV family unit 1, 1961 Aleko, Alpha, Bayerland, Benalla (extended 1983), Blizzard, Blue Eyes, Bracken (replaced 2000), Brighton, Candoux (Demolished and rebuilt as apartments in 2001. Club now operates from a unit in apartment block on original site), Cawarra, Down Hill Only, Duff's Ski Hire, Enzian, Etna, Four Winds, Howqua, Kida Hara, Macura, Mark II (rebuilt 1996), Nicholas, Perpetual Snow,Tatry, Planica, Port Phillip, Ringwood, Roos, Royal Childrens Hospital, St Christina, SCV family units 2 - 5 (site of 2 now occupied by Cobbler), Windy Corner, Wombats/Cuckoo, 1962 The Abom (extended 1968), Amber, Blitz, Delatite, Geebung (scheduled for sale and demolition in 2015), Heathcote Bus, Hoppers, Sundowner, Telemark, 1963 Anjarra, Auski, Holland, Iltis, Maganni, Mt Buller Home Units, St Bernards, 1964 ABV, Collegians, Coonamar, Currawong, Discobolus, Downhill, Firmow, Glacier, Lantern (later Duck Inn), Mansfield, Meki, Monash University, Neringa, Ski View, Snow Gum, White Star, Yokohama, 

1965 Alaska, Alkira (refurbished early 90's), Army (replaced 1988), Avalanche, Corio, Gonzaga, Kooroora (rebuilt after 1953 lodge burnt), Nomad, Nutcracker, Medical Centre (replaced 1995), Schuss S.C., Ski Lib, Snow Down, Terama, 1966 Australian Alpine Club (Patscherkofel, extended 1972, rebuilt 1988, no longer affiliated with AAC.), Cristal, Hu'ski, Puringa, 1967 Jungfrau, Opal (extended 2005), 1968Resort management office, SCV family units, 1969 Bluff Flats, Cedar, Crosscut Flats, Primary School (replaced 1982), Summit fire lookout hut (may have been 1967, replaced 1941 hut),

1970 Arlberg (extended 1974), The Avenue, Ivor Whittaker Lodge (SCV. Built in stages over the summers of 1967 - 1973), Pendergast ski patrol hut on Baldy, 1971 Mitre (rebuilt 199?), Twin Towers, 1972 ... 1973 Ajax (extended twice), Beehive Apartments, Snowflake, 1974 Pension Grimus, 1975 Entrance gatehouse at Mirimbah, 1976? Ski patrol base (aka The Chook Shed, replaced 1983), 1977 Preston, 1978 Merrijig, VSL, 1979 17 The Avenue, Eltham, Pol-ski, Star Alpine, Yurredla, The last four of these were all built on the 1950 Yurredla site),

1980 Koomerang (replaced 1957 building), 1981 Breathtaker, 1982 Aeski, Burwood, Molony's, Omski, Shaky Knees Flats, Primary School (replaced 1972 school, moved to La Trobe building c.1997), Summit, 1983 Alpine Retreat, Ski Patrol (replaced 1976 base), University S.C. Cabin (replaced 1950 Cabin) 1984 Medical Centre, 

1985 Cresta, CSIR (replaced former lodge at One Tree Hill), 1986 Kandahar (replaced 1953 building), Timberline (replaced 1954 lodge), Ullr (replaced 1950 lodge), University S.C. (replaced 1956 lodge) 1987 Club 25 (later Ace of Clubs), 1988 Apres, Army, Mt Buller Ski Lodge, Noorinya, Number 96, Patscherkofel, Spurs Cafe, 1989 Downhill, Chalet Apartments stage 1,

1990 ... 1991 ... 1992 Duck Inn (former Lantern Lodge), Melbourne Walking Club (replaced 1951 lodge), Winterbrook, 1993 Alpine Chapel, Black Forest, 1994 Chalet Apartments stage II, 

1995 Chalet Hotel, Mawson (replaced 1955 lodge), Medical Centre (replaced 1965 centre), Woolybutt, 1996 Christiana, CFA Station, Mark II (replaced 1961 lodge), Whistler, 1997 Elkhorn, La Trobe Uni building (alter R.M.B.), 1998 Bluff View, 1999 ...

The list is incomplete. Some buildings with unknown construction dates include: Police station, Snowflake Factory, Clocktower, Corviglia, Winterhaven, Ski School buildings, Chamois race hut, Tyrol Lodge.

Buller ski run names

Bourke Street. Named in either the 1930s or 40s due to the crowds resembling Bourke St in Melbourne. In 1952 Ski Horizon magazine referred to it as a 'skittle alley... where bodies are as hard to evade as dodgem cars'.

Bull Run. Named after the illegally built Bull Lodge that stood at what is now the western end of the village during the 1946 - 48 ski seasons. It overlooked the ski slope that was named after it.

Chamois Chute. Named after Chamois Ski Club which had a lodge that overlooked it. Chamois was founded in 1925 making it the second or third ski club in Victoria. 

Helicopter Flat. A RAAF Sikorsky helicopter landed there 'causing some surprise to skiers' in early July 1951 as part of a training flight to familiarise pilots with rugged country flying conditions. Ski Horizon suggested that 'it does give us a glimpse of future transport possibilities'. EDIT. However a 1950 map also marks Helicopter Flat at the base of Bourke Street, so perhaps this was an established landing point?

Fannys Finish. Next to the out of bounds Chutes on the West Ridge, Fannys runs south from the summit and is the steepest run at Buller. There are two theories on the origin of the name. The first is that it was named after Nathaniel 'Fanny' Strauss, a prominent skier of the 1930s and member of the University Ski Club. He joined the RAAF when the Second World War broke out and rose to the rank of Squadron Leader, but was killed in early 1945 when his Liberator bomber was shot down. This seems to have been the widely accepted origin of the name in the 1940s.

However Don Woods disputed this theory in the March 1950 edition of Ski Horizon and wrote 'the fanny in question... is situated at the southerly extremity of Ted Adamson, from whom I have the story... The Victorian championships of 1931, or thereabouts, were run on this course... Ted entered a section at a [great] speed such that no orthodox method of deceleration was practicable, and he was obliged to cross the finishing line in a most undignified attitude. Hence the name, coined on the spot by Tom Mitchell.'

Ted Adamson is remembered in his widely published photographs and while Fanny Strauss provided 500 pounds in his will to build the USC lodge at Hotham, his contribution to Victorian skiing is not widely known, so I prefer the Strauss theory of the origin of the run's name.

Lois Run. A now overgrown ski run between Chamois and Bull Run areas named by champion skier Tony Aslangul after his then fiancee, probably in the late 1940s.

Shaky Knees. Named by Kofler in the 1930s due to its then rough and ungroomed nature forcing skiers to negotiate expected bumps.

More on Buller history:

Jim Darby. Mt Buller: the story of a mountain. tSm Publishing, 2008.

David Joss. Mt Buller: a history. Alpine Resorts Commission, n.d. (1995?). 36 page booklet.

Ernest Forras, Jan Henderson. Ernest escapades, or seriously for fun only: the autobiography of Ernest Forras. Ernest Forras, 1994.

Harry Stephenson. Skiing the high plains: a history of the ski exploration of Victoria's alpine area. Graphic Books, 1982. Pages 198 - 219.

I. C. Dillon. Tracks of the morning: a Timbertop history text. Geelong Grammar School, 1989. Pages 323 - 357.

Magazines. Most ski magazines have covered the development of Buller, but two Victorian ski monthlies, Schuss and Ski Horizon were published during the formative years of the mountain. In particular flipping through issues of Ski Horizon from 1949 to 1955 gives the reader a feel for the excitement of the rapidly expanding village, every month something new was happening at Buller.

Club histories. Club histories tend to focus on work parties, lodge construction and administration, but they also give a good idea of skiers experiences over the years.

Lynette Sheridan. University Ski Club 1929 - 1979. U.S.C, 1988. Chapter 9, pages 130 - 161.

30 years going downhill with the RAN Ski Club 1953 - 1983. RAN Ski Club, 1983.

Janis Lloyd. Skiing into history: 1924 - 1984. Ski Club of Victoria, 1986. Pages 93 - 197.

Ann Crawford. A proud achievement: 50 years of YHA on Mt Buller 1947 - 1997. YHA, 1997. 58 page booklet.

Mt Baw Baw

Mt Erica area. 1937. Rover Cabin at Mushroom Rocks, 193X SCV Mt Erica Division (later Baw Baw Ski Club) Hut at Mushrooms Rocks - Mt Erica. 19?? NBW Hut

Talbot Peak Hut. Circa 1910. Demolished by gales in winter 1943. [Schuss Nov-Dec 1943. p. 139.]

Baw Baw village. 

1945. 

Victoria: Backcountry club lodges.

1940. Rover Chalet- Bogong High Plains.

19XX Lake Mountain.

1948. Tallangatta Ski Club - Mt Wills.

1951 Upper Murray Ski Club's Lind Lodge on Six Mile Plateau, sold to Forests Commision in 1968, still stands.

197X Jamieson Ski Club - Mt Skene.

Australian Capital Territory

New South Wales

At this stage I'm not actively working on early NSW lodges, I will just add a few as I come across information on them when researching other subjects. I hope to compile at least a rough list by the end of 2016. Of course if someone is able to supply a list for an area, they will receive a credit and my thanks. D.S.

Charlotte Pass and the Main Range

More on Charlotte Pass history. Rick Walkom. Skiing off the roof: the Kosciusko Chalet at Charlotte Pass and its place in the history of the Australian snowfields. Arlberg Press, 1991. Reprinted by Tabletop Press, 2000

Kiandra / Selwyn / Cabramurra area

Kianda 1955. Kiandra Pioneer, YHA, Peter Fountain's hiuse 'and others'. (SH 4/55 p9)

Norewegian staff cottages at Guthega were rented by several clubs for 1955 ski season including  SMA (Cooma) Ski Club and Canberra YMCA Ski Club. (SH 7/55 p3)

Perisher Valley / Guthega / Diggers Creek

Guthega. 1955. Snowy Mountains Authority Ski Club. 1956? Canberra YMCA Ski Club

Perisher 1955 included: Sydney Uni, Warrugang, Snow Revellers, Cooma, Kandahar, Telemark, Orana, CSIRO, Sydney Ski Club, Abbotsmiths Tow House 'which can accommodate quite a few'.  (SH 4/55 p9)

More on the history of the greater Perisher area:

Peter Southwell-Keely. Highway to heaven: a history of Perisher and the ski resorts along the Kosciuszko Road. Perisher Historical Society, 2013. Some of the information on early lifts conflicts with other sources.

- Appendix F, pp. 249 - 251 lists all club and commercial lodges built in the area (although it excludes staff accommodation, retail premises, etc.)

Thredbo

1957 Crackenback Ski Club, Thredbo Hotel.

More on Thredbo history

Jim Darby. Thredbo 50: 1957 to 2007. tSm Publishing, 2006.

Helen Swinbourne. Accordions in the snow gums: Thredbo's early years. Thredbo Historical Society Inc., 2006.

Geoffrey Hughes. Starting Thredbo. The author, 2008. pp. 28 - 33.

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A history of ski clubs in Victoria (with a little on other states).

Unfinished draft of a lengthy article

When I was half way through writing this article in 2016, I came to the conclusion that I didn’t have the time, contacts or resources to finish it. However many of the issues it covers have never been written about before, so I decided to upload the draft. As it is unedited, it is rather rough and a few sections repeat what has been stated earlier, but overall it should be of interest to people interested in ski clubs. I’m happy to cooperate with anyone who wishes to assist in completing it or who wants to start anew and write their own history of ski clubs. Please email australianmountains (at) gmail.com

Contents

Origins: reasons why clubs were created

Golden years

Building styles

Leases and land tenure

Funding and building lodges

Nordic ski clubs

1990s to today

Utilities

Extra work required, write paragraphs on: 

Ski club peak bodies

List of Victorian ski clubs by date established (very incomplete)

While chasing up dates of early ski accommodation, I came across information on hundreds of early ski clubs, many of which no longer exist. What follows is just a draft which will be moved to it's own page when (or if) I have compiled all the relevant information. However I've put it here for general information and feedback as I won't have time to complete it in the near future. Please send any feedback to australianmountains (at) gmail.com.

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[It appears that] Australia is unique in the ski world in having the majority of ski accommodation based in lodges owned by clubs. Club lodges exist in many other parts of the world, but they are usually only a small proportion of on mountain accommodation. But the hundreds of club lodges give skiing in Australia a unique and more communal feel. Not only do they provide most of the accommodation at the five large ski resorts, but they play an even bigger role at the smaller resorts of Charlotte Pass, Mt Baw Baw and Ben Lomond. [Add another sentence on that special club atmosphere.]

The first ski club owned hut in Australia was built in 1927 at Twilight Tarn near Mt Mawson by the Ski Club of Tasmania. It was soon followed by four ski club ‘cabins’ at Mt Donna Buang on the outskirts of Melbourne, plus on Ben Lomond near Launceston and Mt Franklin in the ACT. But the end of the Second World War heralded an explosion in club lodges, within a decade of the war ending there were nearly 100 in Victoria and over a dozen in Tasmania [confirm these numbers]. But things developed much more slowly in NSW. The majority of snow fields in NSW were in the Koscisuko State Park and while the bureaucrats in charge were prepared to permit a few cabins in the Perisher area and isolated lodges built by groups like the Ski Tourers Association, their approach of not encouraging a concentration of lodges probably held up the development of ski resorts in NSW by a decade. But Thredbo was founded in 1957 and by that time Perisher was well on its way to becoming a proper resort rather than just a dispersed ski field.

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While recreational skiing began in NSW before the First World War, it was a relatively rare activity in Victoria. Much of the credit for popularising the sport should go to Hilda Samsing, a Norwegian born nurse who served with Australian forces in the First World War. When she returned to Australia Samsing took over the lease of the Buffalo Chalet in 1919 and imported skis sourced from her homeland for winter guests to use. By the mid 1920s the number of people who had visited Mt Buffalo or one of the four other commercial ski lodges that were operating in Victoria and enjoyed skiing or who had skied in NSW had grown to a critical mass. So in the next decade over a dozen ski clubs were formed. (See the chronological listing at the end of this article.)

[Add discussion of ski clubs in 1920s and 1930s: include these points: SCV was the first in 1924 (if the revived Bright Alpine Club is disregarded). SCV split after a few months with SCV president Gordon Langridge resigning and quickly establishing Alpine Ski Club which later became Chamois. [The reasons for the split do not appear to be recorded, find out if Langridge’s records or thoughts survive.] Momentum slowly picked up in the 20s with other clubs becoming established (see the list of first 10 clubs near end of this article) and many more were established in 1930s. About 2 dozen? clubs before the war. Benalla’s ski club was confusingly named in memory of a First World War army unit that locals fought in, but functioned like other provincial ski clubs of that time.]

Many clubs went into hibernation for the duration of the Second World War for two main reasons: their most enthusiastic skiers tended to join the armed forces in disproportionate numbers and transport became difficult. Petrol rating became increasingly harsh and there were restrictions on rail travel including bans on civilians traveling on country trains on Sundays after Japan entered the war in 1941. A number of clubs struggled on for the duration and bequests by skiers killed in the war allowed several clubs such as USC and SCV to finance their own lodges in the late 1940s. However some clubs were not revived after the war ended.

What constitutes a club has varied over the years. In the 1920s there was no need to worry about incorporation, legal liability, etc and an informal group could organise a meeting and call itself a club. But as bureaucratic regulation increased and the definition of financial and personal liability was broadened by court decisions and by state parliaments, the previously informal and carefree clubs needed to become more formal and organised. The Ski Club of Victoria had criticised other ski clubs for complying with this, but in August 1944 they quietly became incorporated themselves. In 1948 the newly created Mt Buller Committee of Management decreed that a ski club needed to have at least 25 members to be recognised by them and be eligible for a site in the new subdivsion.

The post war ski boom and the availability of sites on ski hills for clubs to build lodges led to an explosion of ski clubs in the late 1940s and 1950s, especially at Buller, but by the mid 50s, other resorts as well. Many of the new clubs were rather small and while some continue to prosper over 70 years later, others failed after a few years. Harding and Bahnfrei Ski Clubs were important drivers in the post war development of Buller and Baw Baw respectively, but when key members of these clubs retired or moved interstate, those influential clubs folded after less than a decade of existence. Fires were not uncommon and when their lodges burnt down, some clubs were so dispirited that they lacked the drive (or funds) to rebuild and were disbanded shortly afterwards.

[Add paragraphs comparing Victoria with NSW where it was hard for clubs to build in the decade after the war, thus the later development of ski resorts in that state and Tasmania with pre war huts on Ben Lomond and lodges on Mt Mawson from the late 1940s. In transport and access chapter, mention that building of the road up Jacobs Ladder allowed Ben Lomond to become a proper ski resort and compare with how building of roads to Vic resorts helped them.]

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Origins

Ski clubs were established by a variety of groups:

• Many were based in a particular town or suburb which was reflected in the club name. While many clubs incorporate their home district in their name (Albury, Dandenong, East Gippsland and dozens of others), other are less obvious; the Brighton Mountain Wanderers are better known as BMW Ski Club.

• Ski clubs were also begun by members of a trade or profession. For example Asgaard was founded by recently graduated chemical engineers and it is not hard to guess that EdSki and Chorki were formed by groups of teachers.

• Many clubs were established by former students of a school or university. Some are now open to all, while others remain restricted to former students. e.g. Ormond (Ormond College at Melb Uni.), Collegians (Wesley College), Koomerang (Scotch College), Omski (Melbourne Grammar), Opal (Parade College), etc.

• A number of ethnically based clubs were created by groups of post war European migrants from Latvia (Blue Eyes), Lithuania (Neringa), Poland (Tatry and Pol-Ski), Ukraine (Kalyna) and Germany (Tivoli and possibly one other club). As far as I can tell there are not yet any ski clubs for more recently arrived Asian nationalities.

• A couple of clubs are religiously based. AJAX (Associated Judean Athletic Club) for Jews and OLOS (Our Lady Of the Snows) for Roman Catholics

• At least five were breakaways from existing clubs. Chamois Ski Club, the Alpine Club of Victoria , Omega Ski Club and the Mt Bogong Club were all founded by groups that split from the Ski Club of Victoria after disputes with the committee of that club, while Patscherkofel Lodge at Buller disaffiliated from the Australian Alpine Club and became an independent ski club.

• A few clubs are gender based such as the Australian Women's Ski Club. The Melbourne Walking Club, restricted to males until (circa 2020?) and they have a couple of ski lodges in Victoria. Further afield, the Alpine Club of Southern Tasmania was originally a male only club.

• Others were founded by employees of a particular company. ANARE (Antarctic veterans), API (Australian Postal Institute, now Apira), Bogong (formed by Kiewa Hydro employees), CSIR, ICI (now Icicles), Gliss (Government Aircraft Factory), Monsanto (now M Ski), Terama (Forests Commission), BSM (architects Bates Smart and McCutcheon ), etc. All these clubs ceased to have a connection with their founder’s employers long ago. However a few clubs still require a connection with an organisation to join: RAN (Navy), RCH (Royal Children’s Hospital), etc. [Shorten this paragraph and give less examples, the list goes on too long.]

• A surprising number of ski clubs were started by former Rover Scouts who wished to continue skiing after the Rover cut off age of 23, later increased to 25. Clubs were formed by different regions and different generations of ex Rovers, so in 1949 Yurredla Ski Club was formed by Brighton Rovers while in the same year Reindeer Ski Club was started by Brunswick Rovers. In 1950 Mawson was formed by St Kilda Rovers and in 1958 Malvern Rovers established Spark Ski Club. Other clubs that were started by Rovers include: [1970-ish one at Hotham]. As a variant on the scouting theme, a ski club in NSW was begun by members of the Mosman Sea Scouts.

• At least one ski club was founded by members of a club participating in other sports. VSL Ski Club was begun by members of Victorian Surf Lifesaving to keep them occupied in the winter. Other ski clubs may have been founded by hobby and sporting clubs too?

• Some early clubs were started by a family and their friends and named after the core family. (Harding Ski Club)

• Not surprisingly, some clubs simply describe their founders as 'a group of friends' without further elaboration. (Nutcracker, SkiLib)

• The reason for the creation of some clubs is lost and others are simply hard to categorise. Even some clubs that still exist are unsure of their origins as none of the original members left a record of the reasons for the clubs foundation and its early years.

• There were also a few false clubs. Because it was often easier for clubs to get a site to build on than it was for private individuals or businesses, some 'clubs' were established, simply to get a site in a ski village. The founders signed up their non skiing friends (and in one case a dog) to the membership list in order to get sufficient members to be considered a club worthy of being granted a building site. This was especially prevalent in the first few subdivisions at Mt Buller in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Elsewhere Wat Thai Ski Club was another case. Apparently the late Keith Hyland wanted his own holiday house at Falls Creek, so he signed up family and friends to form a 'club'. He was in the business of importing feathers from Thailand to fill doonas, pillows and jackets and he designed the house in a Thai style. Also at Falls Creek, Julian Newton Brown wanted to build a ski lodge, so he also formed a faux club. Rather than blatantly name the lodge after himself, he used his middle name to establish Arundel Ski Club. It was only years later that Arundel formally became Julian’s Lodge.

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The early clubs; 1920s and 30s

The first snow related club in Victoria was the Bright Alpine Club formed in 1888.. At this stage it’s unclear what the focus of their activities was, but they achieved the first winter ascent of Mt Feathertop in September [1889?] {add photo of the trip] and it is fairly likely that they tried skiing, as there was still some gold mining above the snow line in the 1880s and miners in the area are known to have used skis. The club appears to have wound down and it was probably dormant by the time of First World War, however it was revived as the Bright Ski Club in 1927.

The early 1920s saw a big increase in the popularity of recreational skiing. Perhaps the biggest stimulus was in 1919 when the Norwegian born, First World War nurse Hilda Samsing took over the lease of the run down Mt Buffalo Chalet. She thouroughly renovated and improved the building and to help increase business in the quiet winter season when there was very little patronage, she imported XX sets of skis from her homeland. Many hikers and other outdoorsy types learned to ski there and soon set out on their own to explore other mountain ranges.

Inevitably these early recreational skiers began to organise into clubs. The first was the ambitiously named Ski Club of Victoria although it split less than a year after it was formed when the president led a breakaway group to become the Victorian Alpine Ski Club, later renamed Chamois Ski Club. A couple of years later, country skiers who lived near the mountains formed the Omeo Ski Club, followed by the Wangaratta Ski Club in 1930 and several more rural clubs in the 1930s. In Melbourne the University Ski club was created in 1929, by the late 1930s there were at least 17 ski clubs in Victoria.

These early clubs were mostly about organsisng and co-ordrinating ski trips for their members, although four clubs built cabins at the Mt Donna Buang ski resort in the 1930s and one built a rather basic hut at Mt Buller. Also at Buller, members of Junior Ski Club held the majority of shares in the Buller Chalet before a managment buyout in 1939? Skiers in other clubs either did day trips, slept in mountain cattlemens huts or stayed in the commercial ski lodges that had been built at Mt Buffalo, Hotham Heights, Mt St Bernard, Flour Bag Plain (near Dinner Plain), Mt Feathertop and Mt Buller.

Write a paragraph on the effects on the carastrophic 1939 fires and the six years of the Second World War.

The post war golden years of ski clubs

The three decades from the end of the Second World War were the golden years for ski clubs in Victoria. People still remembered everyone pulling together for a common cause in the war years and there was a much stronger sense of community at the time. This meant there was a willingness to join work parties and share accommodation with other members, far more than there is now. Note on work parties [Expand on what they involved]. By the late 20th century, members tended to be less willing to contribute their time and more work was contracted out to trades people and builders. “Since the early 90s… volunteering for work parties has diminished and consequently there has been less dependence on the members and more on contract labour.“ Koomerang S. C. The First Fifty Years. 2007. p. 22.

Why some clubs thrived and other clubs failed

But from the mid 1970s there was an increasing demand for privacy and all inclusive accommodation with ensuite bathrooms and without bunk beds, cleaning rosters and shared rooms. The outcome of this changing taste was fourfold:

• An increase in the construction of private flats, which were fairly rare at ski fields until the 1970s.

• Clubs renovated and improved their lodges in response to the demand for a higher standard of amenities and accommodation. In some lodges smaller bedrooms were converted into a pair of ensuite bathrooms for rooms on either side. (such as Skali Ski Club lodge at Baw Baw and Kellys Lodge (formerly YHA) also at Baw Baw)

• Many clubs appointed resident managers to eliminate cleaning duties for guests. The managers often received free or discounted accommodation in return for running the lodge, although some were paid a modest stipend as well if they did other work such as providing a cooked breakfast. These lodge managers usually had other jobs elsewhere on the mountain.

• Some earlier clubs whose founders were now elderly and which had not been successful in succession planning, gave up and the clubs folded when faced with the need to fund renovations and increasingly high 'bed taxes' imposed by resort management. The sites of their lodges were usually sold and often redeveloped as flats.

From the 1970s some newly formed clubs bought an existing lodge or a flat in a new development rather than go to the bother of building themselves. (Banool, Langrenn, etc.) Other clubs faced with an ageing and declining membership or a difficult to maintain lodge sold their sites to developers and took a flat in the new complex as part payment for the site. However clubs that own a flat rather than a lodge, do not have a club lodge atmosphere as there is little interaction with other members when only one group is in residence. Perhaps unfairly, they have been compared to time share companies.

However while quite a few clubs died when the founding members retired from skiing, many more continued to thrive. It is difficult to define what made the difference, but having a comfortable lodge, good succession planning to recruit younger committee members and sound finances are three obvious contributors to the survival of a club.

• Many of the founding members of post war ski clubs retained control of club committees into late middle age, without involving a younger generation on the club committee to recruit friends and introduce new ideas. When the founders became too old to ski, there was often no one to keep the club going

• As living standards improved, so did expectations for holiday accommodation. Sharing rooms with relative strangers, communal bathrooms and guest cleaning duties became increasingly unpopular. Some clubs rebuilt their lodges on a more modern plan, others adapted their dormitories to become more like hotel rooms with ensuite bathrooms. Most surviving club lodges now have an on site lodge manager to handle contingencies and do cleaning and maintenance work. Often these managers have jobs elsewhere on the mountain and receive free or discounted accommodation in return for managing a lodge

• Some clubs developed a club spirit that crossed between generations and between different groups of friends, so that everyone felt involved. This is a fairly difficult thing to achieve and clubs that didn't pull it off were much more likely to fail.

• Finances. The increasing cost of maintaining aging buildings in a harsh climate, the cost of renovating them to the higher standard of accommodation that people had begun to expect and rapidly escalating rates and fees from resort management. Many clubs had been built before utilities were available and had difficulty financing expensive connections to the new town water, sewage, electricity and gas that began to be provided by ski resort management. [Early clubs had relied on generators, bottled gas, septic tanks and either rainwater tanks or a strategically chosen location next to a spring.] There was also the issue of increasingly strict fire regulations. Many older buildings were unable to comply without ruinously expensive alterations. Collectively all these factors added up to clubs needing to find a lot of money if they wanted to survive. Only well managed and cashed up clubs could ride out these costs without imposing punishingly high fees on their members.

• Then there was luck. Many former ski clubs did most things right, but were still unable to pull it all together to survive in an increasingly expensive and bureaucratic environment.

While many ski clubs prospered, new clubs were being founded less frequently and the building of lodges reduced from the 1980s. Bundara at Hotham and the Australian Alpine Club franchise at Dinner Plain were among the last newly created clubs in Victoria to build their own lodge. As far as has been discovered, no newly established clubs have built lodges in Victoria for over 35 years, although there have been quite a few rebuilds of old club lodges. (The last newly established club in Australia to build their first lodge may have been Tasmanian Rovers Ski Club, founded in 1991, which built a 60-ish bed lodge at Ben Lomond in 1996.)

While new construction had almost ceased at Baw Baw, it has continued at Dinner Plain and the three large ski resorts in Victoria, but it was almost exclusively flats, houses, hotels or clubs rebuilding on their original sites. Every year real estate agents have a few listings for old ski club lodges, usually with the suggestion that the site is 'suitable for redevelopment'.

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Building styles

In the 1920's accommodation on the ski fields was available at commercial lodges at six locations in Victoria: Mt Buffalo, Mt Feathertop, Mt St Bernard, Mt Hotham, Flour Bag Plain (near Dinner Plain) and Mt Buller. The first club lodges (or cabins as they were often called) were built between 1930 and 1936 by four clubs at Mt Donna Buang. In 1934 the SCV also built a fairly basic hut at Boggy Creek on Mt Buller.

Unlike the larger commercial establishments, the early club 'cabins' were fairly small and utilitarian. Essentially they had a main room with a fireplace, bunk beds against the walls, with a small separate kitchen and sometimes an extra sleeping area in the attic. The club cabins had a long drop dunny in a small shed and if the occupants wanted a shower, hot water was tipped into a canvas bag with a shower head attached, which was hung off a tree outside. Standing in a tin dish, the water could be tipped into the bag again if a longer shower was required. By the 1940s most cabins boasted a small tin tub which could be used as a cramped bath.

These pre-war club owned cabins made very few concessions to privacy and the architecture was more utilitarian than stylish. They were simply a shelter in bad weather and a place for skiers to eat and sleep. Pre Second World War commercial lodges (half of them described themselves as ‘chalets’) were a step up from the club cabins, they were mostly larger and more comfortable and while a few places had twin share rooms, multi share rooms were still standard and ensuite bathrooms were unheard of. In the mid 1940s as the Second World War came to an end, club owned cabins of the same basic style were erected by Gippsland people affiliated with the SCV at Baw Baw, by the CSIR Ski Club at Buller, Bogong Ski Club at Falls Creek and by Wangaratta Ski Club at Mt St Bernard.

The next step was made by post war club lodges who took their lead from the pre war commercial lodges. In the mid to late 1940s new lodges of a higher standard than the old pre war club cabins on Donna Buang were built by Alpine and University clubs at Hotham, Albury Ski Club at Falls Creek and the Ski Club of Victoria at Buller. Communal areas and bedrooms were separated, although the rooms still had a dormitory feel to them with six or eight people in bunk beds in each bedroom. For the most part, toilets remained outdoor long drops. Limited attempts were made at aesthetic appeal, but strict post war rationing of building material mostly limited this to stone walls or distinctive paint schemes.

Obtaining building material was especially difficult in the late 1940s as after the end of the Second World War, building material was rationed with preference given to building new houses or renovating factories to allow them to convert from making war material to consumer goods. Thus post war ski lodges were often built from second hand material and supplies that were obtained under the false pretense that they would be used for housing to get around rationing. The Myrtleford Ski Club cut the timber needed for their Falls Creek lodge themselves and roofed it with iron from an old tobacco kiln. One lodge built at Hotham in the 1940s was denied permission to buy corrugated iron or cement, so it was roofed with re-rolled chemical drums and some of the cement appears to have been bought on the black market. Even as late as 1950[?], Belmore Ski Club at Buller had difficulty getting decent beds, so they used bunks pulled out of the troop transport ship HMAS Manoora. {from interview with Colin Trumble].

From the 1950s lodge standards continued to gradually improve, bedrooms began to be put in a separate wing of the building to shield them from noise in the kitchen and lounge areas. Where larger dormitories had been fairly standard, four or six people per room became the norm. Later on ensuite bathrooms appeared [which was the first? Possibly the second AAC Falls Creek lodge c.1972, are there earlier examples?] although many club lodges built until the 1980s still had bathrooms shared by several rooms. (Bundara at Hotham might have been the last club lodge built without ensuites?)

From the early 50s post-war rationing of building materials eased and there was a move away from the 'utilitarian box' approach to ski lodge design and some attempts were made at emulating the fashionable ‘mid-century modern’ architectural style, albeit with modifications to cope with snow, high winds and cold temperatures. A-frame buildings were popular from the mid 1950s into the early 1970s and some survive. (Double B ski Club at Buller claims to have built the first in the country).

Other notable examples of attempts at a distinct architectural style are 1HP Ski Club built in 1973 at Hotham which was almost an inverted A-frame and the concrete semi-brutalist ???? Ski Club erected at Buller in 196X. But for the most part ski lodges were built in the fashionable architectural styles that prevailed for large buildings at the time, although very few of the hundreds of post war lodges were built in the cream brick veneer style that was popular for suburban houses of that era.

A distinct Australian mountain style appeared in the mid 1980s when an effort was made to establish a uniform style of architecture in the newly established town at Dinner Plain. The town was built on the nearest substantial area of freehold land to Hotham by a syndicate that included the architect Peter McIntyre who had been designing ski lodges for over(?) 20 years before he tackled Dinner Plain. They claimed DP was the first new town built in Victoria since the gold rush. While that was not accurate (exceptions include Yallourn, Wonthaggi, new Tallangatta, Eildon, Rawson and most towns in the Mallee including Mildura), it is true that right from the start, DP was planned with an eye to both functionality and aesthetic appeal.

Regulations at Dinner Plain were enforced as to what style of buildings could be erected and what building materials could be used. [Define what the style was, muted colours, stone, wood and corrugated iron, multi pitched roofs, lots of gables, etc. Wander around DP and take photos of the best examples.] While only one club lodge was built at Dinner Plain, the DP style caught on elsewhere (such as the new summit road at Buller and a new subdivision at Thredbo). While some have harshly described it as twee, it remains popular in the snow country across mainland Australia over 30 years after it was introduced.

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Many clubs have lodges on several mountains. Typically they are all run by the same club administration, with members having equal rights to stay at all lodges (Alpine Club of Victoria, CSIR, Koomerang, RCH, Schuss, Skilib, University Ski Club and several others). Rather than build a second lodge on another mountain, at least one ski club (Chorki) opted to cater for their members in all seasons by buying a large house at a beach resort.

Two exceptions are the Australian Alpine Club where each lodge is autonomous with members only holding shares in their own project, although members of a lodge on one mountain have limited rights to stay at affiliates on other mountains. This autonomy has led to three lodges (Patcherkofel Lodge at Buller, Roslyn Lodge at Thredbo and Illawong Lodge near Guthega) severing their ties to the AAC ‘franchise’ to become fully independent. St George Alpine Club has a similar set up. Originally based in NSW, the club maintains a separate membership list for their large unit in a complex of flats at Hotham.

Another instance of lodge autonomy is the Rover Scout lodges at Baw Baw, Mt Erica and on the Bogong High Plains, where each is run by a separate 'crew', although each crew is ultimately answerable to Scouts Australia, so the crews running each lodge are not entirely in control of their own projects.

Obtaining a site for a lodge

In the early days obtaining a site was often as simple as indicating a broad area on a map and obtaining a Permisive Occupancy lease from the government authority that managed the land. Things became more complex with village sundivisions, the first was surveyed at Mt Buller and leases issued on 1 January 1949 with firm conditions about what could be buil. [Expand this section considerably and merge other relevant paragrphs into it.]

How were club lodges built?

From the 1930s right through to the mid 1970s, there were four ways to build a club ski lodge.

• Many lodges were built from scratch in a smilar way to buildings elsewhere. A common approach was to hire a draftsman to design the lodge, (or an architect if a club was flush or had a tame architect on the membership list) and then hire a builder to construct the building.

• As above, but the builder only completed the lodge to lock up stage with volunteer work parties finishing the interior.

• Buy an existing portable building and move it. At least two post war ski lodges had their origin as war surplus army huts. Edelweiss Ski Club. built thier lodge at Hotham in 1947 from a prefabricated hut. Hearsay has it that it gave them a lot of trouble in the early years including the roof colapsing under heavy snow. The YHA’s ‘Shiver Shanty’ at Buller was a former officers hut at Lancefield army camp. Their history has several pages on the difficulties of moving it, errecting it, weatherproofing it and fitting it out. Before Monsanto Ski Club built their own lodge, in Autumn 1948 they built an annexe to Shiver Shanty out of a shipping case that had been used to transport vehicles.

• The almost entirely ‘do it yourself’ approach often adopted by new clubs building their first lodge. Essentially, as much as possible was done by the members, if a club needed a skilled tradesman, they often gave them a ‘free’ membership in return for work that usually exceeded the value of the membership. The Asgaard club history relates how their club was founded by a bunch of chemical engineers who knew very little about building. Not surprisingly they made a lot of mistakes including building in high winds, although they did manage to convince an architect to design their lodge in return for a club membership. Similar stories appear in a lot of club histories with tales of collapsing walls and hurried construction due to threats of being evicted from their leases if they didn’t get a move on and erect a building. The Gliss Ski Club history has a brief, but evocative description of what was involved in building their lodge at Buller in 10 days over the summer of 1951 - 1952.

  The buildings constructed by members often incorporated scavenged material in order to save costs. The fireplace at University Ski Club’s 1934 lodge on Mt Donna Buang incorporated worn out rock crusher jaws left behind after a contractor had upgraded the road the previous year, in 1935 they added a porch built from material salvaged from abandoned logging huts nearby. The same club’s 1949 lodge at Hotham was roofed with flattened chemical drums, while members of Monsanto Ski Club at Buller did the same thing with caustic soda drums discarded by their employer to roof their 1950 lodge. At Hotham, in the 1970s, Asgaard built their fireplace from an old boiler they rescued from a scrapheap at the Altona oil refinery, while Ormond Ski Club incorporated material from an abandoned ski tow into their lodge.

  Perhaps the most thrifty club (or the one that drove their members the hardest?) was Myrtleford Ski Club who built their Falls Creek lodge from timber that they had cut and milled themselves and topped it off with an iron roof repurposed from old tobacco kilns.

Sadly, in recent decades bureaucratic regulation has extended its tentacles to the extent that almost everything must now be done by qualified tradesmen, which costs big money. So the days of a bunch of clueless but enthusiastic amateurs with a tiny budget working things out on the job are long past. However lodges built by this method usually lasted just as long as those entirely built by architects and tradies and there are still examples of member built lodges that have served several generations of club members for over 70 years,

Funding and building club lodges

The first club owned ski ‘cabin’ in Victoria was built at Donna Buang in 1930 followed by two more on that mountain in 1934, another circa 1936 and one at Buller in 1934. The MWC cabin at Donna was partly funded from club resources and partly from a government grant, but the USC and SCV Donna cabins were funded by some members ‘subscribing’ the equivalent of a few weeks wages to a fund that paid for the cabins to be built. In return the subscribers got free accommodation and a guaranteed bed (for 12 years at USC Donna) and a say on the cabin management committee, while other club members had to pay a modest fee to stay there.

Some of the first post war lodges such as CSIR at Buller were similar to the basic ‘cabins’ at Donna, so they could be funded by a similar model. Most of the buildings in the first 21 lot subdivision at Buller (issued in 1948 with the new leases becoming effective on 01 Jan 1949) were also pretty small and basic. However more ambitious club lodges were also appearing by the late 1940s such as USC at Hotham and ‘The Whit’ at Buller.

In a few cases post war, fundraising for new lodges was kicked off by bequests from skiers killed in action. Nathaniel ‘Fanny’ Strauss left ?500 pounds? to the ?University Ski Club? and Major Ivor Whittacker left 500 quid to the SCV. That provided the basis for those clubs to build lodges on Hotham and Buller respectively.

Another way of fundraising was interest bearing bonds. The YHA Buller Section had built their 'Shiver Shanty’ at Buller in 1947, but it was always intended to be a temporary structure. To fund their new lodge, which opened in 1952, 10 pound bonds with an interest rate of 3% were sold, with the money to be repaid with interest after five years. As the early 1950s were a time of high inflation (consistently in double figures), purchasers of the bonds would have have been under no illusion that the interest would be comparable to that of banks. So much of that 10 pounds would have been effectively a donation to the lodge.

Elaborate on work parties, purchasing shares in lodges and paragraphs on other things.

Club histories are often full of commentary on finances and there appears to have been an infinite number of ways to fund building and maintenance of lodges. But the standard model was …

Others had separate corporate entities for the club and the lodge, but usually a person couldn’t be a member of the club without holding a share in a lodge, so they had a setup similar to the ‘stapled securities’ in companies that are traded on the stock exchange… or some variant of that concept?

Today ski clubs are overwhelmingly about their lodges and most exist to provide accommodation for their members rather than as social groups. This can be seen by the decline of non snow related club social activities such as balls, dinners, other gatherings and even club race weekends. It is also evidenced by the end of most ski clubs based in towns in the mountains where locals could easily commute to the ski fields in a short time such as Bright, Warburton and Mansfield. (Merrijig Ski Club has never been associated with the hamlet of that name, it’s members have always come from much further afield.)

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Leases and land tenure

The St Bernard Hospice was a miners hotel near Hotham which was built in 1863 and the land was made freehold in 1884. It was also arguably Victoria's first ski lodge as it hosted recreational skiers at least as early as 1911, probably much earlier. The hospice received a new lease of life when it was renovated for skiers in 1925. Another old mining hotel on freehold land that was utilised by skiers was Rundells Alpine Lodge at Flour Bag Plain (near Dinner Plain). The first substantial accommodation in the Victorian snow country specifically built for tourists was the Buffalo Chalet, erected by the state government in 1911 and leased to a number of operators. With the growth of interest in skiing, Bill Spargo leased the newly constructed road builders cottage at Hotham Heights to provide accommodation for skiers in the winter of 1925.

In the same year The Feathertop Bungalow Ltd. built their commercial ski lodge on a miners right in order to circumvent the slow bureaucratic process of obtaining a conventional lease on Crown land. While this pioneering enterprise was commercially successful, it was clearly not a mining business and after three ski seasons they were forced off the site and had to sell their profitable guest house to the government owned railways for just 8% of what it cost to build. This precedent was at the front of the minds of all those who built at the ski fields for the next half century and very little construction occurred without every bureaucratic and legal formality being strictly observed. There were a couple of notable exceptions such the illegal squatter village at Buller from 1945 to 1949 and the Jamieson Ski Club hut on Mt Skene built in the 1970's. [Confirm that the JSC tenure was dodgy.] So in 1929 the new Buller Chalet Ltd made sure they had formalised a long lease before they built their commercial ski lodge.

Australia's first ski club cabin was built by the Ski Club of Tasmania at Twilight Tarn in 1927 and the 1930's saw the first club cabins in Victoria. From 1930 to 1936 four clubs built accommodation on Mt Donna Buang, the nearest ski field to Melbourne and the first proper ski resort with a variety of runs, ski hire and food outlets in Australia. The early club cabins were built on 'Permissive Occupancy' leases, a somewhat shaky form of tenure where clubs paid a nominal fee to lease their land (typically one pound per year at Donna or initially 5/- for the first subdivision at Buller in 1949), but in return for this cheap rent, they had no security and could, in theory, be evicted at a months notice with no compensation. While POs were far from ideal, it was the only type of lease that was easily obtainable at places where ski clubs wished to build, so they continued to be a feature of Victorian ski fields for over 50 years. With one exception, no ski clubs were ever thrown off their PO leases without many years notice, [add a few sentences on the controversial termination of the last POs at Buller], the possibility that they might be meant that banks would not issue loans secured by club lodges on permissive occupancy leases, resulting in financial difficulties for clubs wishing to fund renovations, extensions or build new lodges on other mountains.

The only club to have it’s permissive occupancy terminated without compensation was the Murray Valley Ski Club. The club lodge, built in [1952?], was just outside the bounds of what became Hotham village’ Located where the Razorback joins the Great Alpine Road, it was ideally located for skiers skiing along the road (often closed in winter) or climbing up Bon Accord Spur. By the mid 1980s the club appears to have shrunken to include just one family and a few friends. As such, they were under resourced and didn’t have the capital to spend on renovations necessary to qualify for lease. So it appears they just delayed and procrastinated until 2006 when the Resort Management Board took possession of the property, which has been vacant ever since. [Source: club history by Thomas Whiteside.]

Paragraph on ACV, USC and early club tenure at Hotham, problems with their POs.

Problems varied between decades and resorts but this extract from the history of the Hotham based Ormond Ski Club is an example of the sort of thing many clubs had to deal with:

The committee was continually frustrated by the ever changing conditions that the RMB tried to impose: they could not get a [renewed] lease without increasing the number of beds, but they could not expand their footprint because of the new protections for the pygmy possum… This was a genuine Catch 22 situation, the outcome of which could only be another short lease that would not satisfy a bank wanting security of tenure… before providing a loan [which was needed to build the extra beds the RMB required of them]… correspondence between the two parties exceeded 60 communications and resort management set up all kinds of really unreasonable conditions.
Sarah Martin. From first tracks to last drinks: the first 50 years of the Ormond Ski Club. O.S.C., 2019. p. 84.

Reform of land tenure and resort management

One of the strange circumstances that seems unbelievable today is that ski clubs with leases of Crown land on different Victorian mountains had to negotiate with very different bureaucratic agencies according to accidents of history as to which bureaucracy was in charge of the land.

• As it was in a former mining area, Mt Hotham was administered by the Lands Department,

• Falls Creek adjoined a hydro electric scheme so clubs had to deal with the State Electricity Commission, (a government owned company that had a virtual monopoly of electricity generation, distribution and retail in Victoria).

• Buller, Baw Baw and Donna Buang were in timber harvesting areas, so the Forests Commission of Victoria was in charge of the land they occupied.

• Mt Buffalo was in a national park and while no clubs built there, the owners and lease holders of the commercial lodges at Cresta Valley and The Chalet had to deal with yet another bureaucracy.

Each of these authorities had its own regulations and idiosyncrasies and clubs with lodges on different mountains soon learnt that a totally different approach was required with each one. Even within the Forests Commission, attitudes could vary widely. At Buller the FCV ran a very tight ship and lease holders learned that they had to be careful to closely adhere to every regulation, while it appears the local Forests Commission managers at Baw Baw were more laid back and things were often regulated by word of mouth agreements.

While some of those responsible for overseeing ski areas, especially locally based managers, were understanding and flexible, many were not. The burden of dealing with often disinterested and inflexible bureaucrats was eased by the creation of leaseholders associations and local resort management boards, but club histories and personal memoirs covering the period from the 1950s to the 1970s are full of frustration at dealing with what most writers saw as intransigent bureaucracy.

[Add a paragraph on the introduction of longer leases.]

The Land Conservation Council was a government body established to review the use of Crown land. From the 1970s to the 1990s it produced a series of reports covering different regions of Victoria. In 1977 or 78? the LCC report for the Alpine Area was released and in draft recommendations published the following year, they recommended the formal separation of alpine resorts from adjoining Crown land and that the resorts be administered by a separate body. The state government accepted the recommendation and the new Alpine Resorts Commission took over running ski resorts in 1983. Many people at the time saw this as a great innovation, but the ARC became an unwieldy bureaucracy in it's own right. It occupied a suite of offices in Melbourne as well as having additional staff at each resort. Of course all these new costs had to be paid from locally raised funds.

Clubs and businesses at ski resorts who were used to low lease fees and handshake agreements with the often rather relaxed local bosses of their former land managers, were shocked that with the advent of the ARC, there were huge increases in lease fees and the need to dot every 'i' and cross every 't' in accordance with correct bureaucratic practice. Many had to employ accountants and lawyers for the first time.

[Include more on this, perhaps quote one of Julian's eloquent rants.] Eventually the chaos, suffering and financial hurt that the ARC inflicted on the entire ski industry caused it to be disbanded after about 14 years of existence. [In an effort to provide a more balanced coverage, I’ve been looking for some praise or defence of the ARC, but it looks like no one anywhere had a good thing to say about it.]

With the demise of the ARC, each resort got its own Resort Management Board (RMB) for the 1998 ski season. Each RMB was responsible for administering a single ski area, although Buller absorbed the adjoing Mt Stirling cross country ski resort within a few years {I think, confirm this and get dates]. While the members of the RMBs were appointed by the state government rather than elected by local ski clubs and businesses, they were definitely more answerable to local stakeholders than the old ARC was. However the complaints of unduly high fees continued, although whether those complaints are valid depends on who you talk to.

[Add a little on recent plans to abolish RMBs and replace them with a new ARC type body.]

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Of all the resorts, Mt Buller seems to have had the most trouble with leases. While the Forests Commission had a good relationship with the four clubs on Donna Buang that had leases for cabins on that mountain in the pre war years, they were unclear about how many leases they should grant on Buller after the 90-ish bed Buller Chalet burnt down in 1942? and only a few leases were granted to CSIR, SCV & YHA clubs. This shortage of accommodation led to an illegal squatter village developing soon after the war finished, with shacks and caravans hidden in the scrub. Interests associated with the Junior Ski Club, whose members had a controlling shareholding in the old Chalet until 1938 built a hut on its site, although it’s unclear if this was authorised. While these squatter huts were condemned as soon as a proper subdivision had been made in the summer of 1948 - 49, some years later a few clubs with early legal tenure such as YHA's ‘Shiver Shanty’ and the original CSIR lodge were informed that they would also have to move.

Paragraph on the 1980s PO controversy at Buller. "In 1982-83 Omega, Monsanto, Ullr, Melbourne Walking Club and Chamois were advised that Permissive Occupancy rights on the mountain would be terminated." [Source for this quote?]

Add a paragraph on the move to more secure leases, initially under old forms of management, then by RMBs.

Add a little on the difficulties clubs had with inflexible Vogon like bureaucrats insisting they comply with inappropriate or absurd building regulations designed for non snowy areas like those requiring emergency exit doors to open outwards (unsafe at a ski resort as they could be blocked by snow) and bathroom windows requiring vents that could not be closed (leading to snow blowing into bathrooms).

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Nordic Ski Clubs. As nordic clubs tend not to own buildings, they have been much more fluid. Clubs have been established and thrived for years, but then folded decades later leaving no trace of their existence. Without a lodge to keep groups focused, even clubs that were decades old could quickly disappear as shown by the demise of Mt Bullfight Ski Club in 2014 and the apparent end of The Winter Group which was one of the most active ski touring clubs for many years.

So while the list at the end of this article attempts to include all nordic ski clubs, it is probable that a few have been missed. Please email any additions, corrections or short club histories to australianmountains (at) gmail.com.

1990 to today

Infill development and redevelopment of sites. Small club lodges on large sites being demolished and replaced with large multi story developments. Add a few sentences on

• The case of four or five older lodges at Buller that still had P.Os being forced to split their land in 1982 - 83.

• The present development of the under utilised RMB site at Hotham Heights and Asgaard Ski Club and their demolished neighbour at Davenport

In recent decades relatively little new land has been released for development at ski resorts. ... Why? Possibly a combination of commercial lodges lobbying to limit supply of accommodation, bureaucratic lethargy or intransigence, greenies obstructing everything as greenies usually do and/or lack of much demand for new sites?

But there have been a few new land releases at ski resorts, new Summit Road at Buller, Hot Plate Drive at Hotham, Snow Gums Lane at Falls and several further subdivisions of freehold land at Dinner Plain. However the number of new building sites made available at ski resorts post 1980-ish was a small fraction of what was subdivided pre 1980.

But very few clubs built on these new sites.

Partly as skiing had become a mature industry, growth had slowed and there was little unfilled demand for accommodation on the ski fields. Another reason was that it was becoming increasingly difficult and expensive to expand the built area and potential subdivisions (such as the far end of Stirling Road at Buller) were a long way from ski village centres and ski lifts, even a small block was subject to expensive environmental impact surveys, the days when a club would be issued a general Permissive Occupancy lease for an area and could just turn up and select where they wanted to build like the ACV did at Hotham in 1947 and the SCV at Buller in 1947 were long gone. Then there were utilities, in the 1940s huts were lit with kerosene lamps or the wealthier ones had a generator. In 1946 when the SCV wanted the road extended to the site of their proposed lodge on Buller, they got Harold Doughty, a club member who was a nearby logging contractor to build it on an alignment of his choosing in a few hours with his bulldozer. By contrast in recent decades a properly surveyed road has to be built at vast expense and water, sewage, electricity, gas and internet connections are required. All this costs big money and volunteer labour can't be used.

Accepting paying commercial guests

One major change to the way clubs are run is the hosting of commercial guests at many clubs. This has provided additional income when fees imposed by resort management boards have risen at a rate much faster than inflation and at a time when the membership of many clubs was aging and not being replaced by new younger members. Taking commercial guests ensured that club lodges would be close to full and receive useful income when there was good snow.

But this development changed the experience at clubs that accepted outside guests. Instead of being a fairly tight knit group where everyone was either a member or a guest of a member, the experience was closer to a commercial lodge where guests would meet strangers they would never see again. Some clubs experienced problems with rowdy or disruptive outside guests disturbing their previously tranquil haven. However the upside was the extra income for the club and that many regular commercial guests at club lodges enjoyed the experience and decided to become members themselves.

Higher 'rates' and overhead costs, building codes

The first generation of club lodges built in the decade after the Second World War were mostly built by members and not subject to strict building regulations, although at Buller the (?local Forests Commission management committee?) insisted that sites be kept tidy and have stone foundations. Many of these early post war lodges burnt down, such as Albury at Falls, Moose at Buller, etc (plus the one at Buller that burnt down the first weekend it was occupied, flip through copies of Ski Horizon and find out its name.)

As the ski villages developed they were subject to varying levels of administration. Before the war Donna Buang was the only proper resort with club cabins, but the committee of management established in 1934 appears to have been mainly concerned with public amenities and ski runs. With the decline of Donna, the four resorts that developed after the war were overseen by different government departments, Buller and Baw Baw were on Forests Commission land, as a former mining area Hotham was on territory controlled by the Lands Department and Falls Creek was built near the Kiewa Hydro Scheme, so it was under the charge of the State Electricity Commission, the government owned monopoly electricity company. A fifth ski resort, Mt Buffalo was on land owned by a fourth bureaucracy, National Parks, although no club lodges were ever built there.

These agencies each developed their own approach to the ski villages on their land, but generally if clubs and businesses behaved, they had a fairly hands off approach. Thus charges and fees were low, but so were services and amenities. Most early club lodges were self contained and didn’t rely on external infrastructure and utilities. They had their own electric generators, rainwater tanks, bottled gas and septic tanks and the unsealed village roads were largely maintained by those who used them.

Over the decades resorts began to supply services and consequently their fees increased, but they were not so high as to be a problem to most clubs.

However everything changed in the early 1980s with the creation of the Alpine Resorts Commission. It had long been obvious to anyone observing the ski fields that it was absurd that five tourist resorts should be overseen by four different government agencies, none of which had the slightest interest in tourism.

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So what happens to the buildings that were owned by former ski clubs? Many of the older club lodges have a prime position, they were the first buildings in what developed into a sizable town. Many of these have been demolished and replaced with multistory developments, often with shops, cafes or a bar at ground level with several stories of flats built above. Other old club lodges were bought by lift companies and utilised as staff accommodation, examples are Spiral Stairs and Dolomite at Hotham. Older unrenovated lodges such as Geebung at Mt Buller were offered as development sites with barely a mention of an existing building. Perhaps the best outcome is that a newly formed club buys the old club’s lodge, modernises it and continues using it as a club lodge. [Move this paragraph to a more relevant spot.}

Utilities

[Move earlier comments on utilities in other sections to here.]

In the early days a club lodge was responsible for absolutely everything to do with their building except road access. But the post war years were an era of self reliance, so no one foresaw that utilities such as water, electricity, gas, sewage, garbage removal and telephone cables (which effectively became internet) would ever be provided for them.

• Lighting and heating. When Victoria’s first club owned ski lodge was built on Mt Donna Buang in 1930, the building was heated by a wood fire and lit with hurricane lanterns and candles. Subsequent lodges at Donna and at the present ski resorts continued in the same way until the 1950s. In the 50s sheds for electric generators were built some distance from the lodges and while the fuel was expensive and the noise was annoying, the provision of electricity was certainly worth it.

• Before mains electricity was connected lodges ran their own generators, but there was some interconnection, one example is the Forras brothers, owners of Kooroora at Buller, who installed a large generator in 1964 and sold electricity to their neighbours, API paid 100 pounds, YHA 75 and Southern Croos 25 pounds, Howver eventually the State Electricity Commision, the monopoly generator and didtributor of power got wind of this scheme and cut off the three club lodges in June 1966, leaving them to make do with gas lamps and whatever they could find until the SEC connected Buller to their grid a year later.

• Mains electricity was laid on at Falls Creek (which was built next to a hydro electric scheme) in 195X and at Buller in 1966 [Joss p.33]. Hotham and Baw Baw had to wait longer, which is why many disused generator sheds survive at those resorts. Hotham got a big generator to supply the whole village in 1985 [Martin p,. 49] and was later connected to mains power in 19XX while Baw Baw got its own gas powered generator providing electricity to the whole resort in XXXX, although Baw Baw is still not connected to the national electricity grid. [Mention different routes tried for underground cables to Hotham and find my photo of the huge machine laying power cables on Machinery Spur circa 2001.]

• Gas. If a lodge has electricity, gas is not essential, so gas was the last utility to arrive at most resorts. However many clubs used bottled LPG gas for their kitchen, hot water and heating needs. None of the four remaining ski resorts in Victoria is connected to the gas grid, so LPG is trucked up the mountain and stored in large tanks located well away from buildings and piped to each lodge. Appliances designed to run on natural gas need to be modified to run on LP Gas, so there is a minor inconvenience and expense in that.

• Telephone. As early as [circa 1930?] Bill Spargo ran a telephone line from Hotham Heights to Harrietville. Each autumn he dropped the line to the ground to protect it against lightning strikes over winter and in late spring he raised it and reattached it to trees. Similar arrangements applied for Donna Buang and the commercial ski lodges at Mt Buffalo, Mt Feathertop[?] and Mt Buller[?]. As the phone line was essentially fencing wire, this meant that there was only a single ‘party line’ between Hotham and the outside world and in the late 1940s a system involving different types of ring patterns evolved so people could tell which lodge an incoming call was intended for. Things improved when ski fields were connected to the outside world by radio telephone and or modern telephone systems in 19XX. Mobile telephony was introduced in the 1990s although reception for some networks is still shaky at DP and BB.

• Garbage. When the first club lodges were built, the various government agencies that managed the Crown land they were built on insisted that they remove or incinerate their own rubbish. Garbage removal came fairly quickly after the ski fields evolved into proper resorts as it did not require expensive infrastructure. As rubbish bins are easily buried in the snow and ravens, currawongs and foxes can tear open plastic garbage bags, a system of garbage huts evolved at most resorts. Essentially each lodge is required to build a critter proof ventilated hutch beside the road with a floor about a metre above the ground. Bagged rubbish is put in these huts and is removed by resort authorities in an over snow vehicle or truck, depending on snow levels. Dates: Buller 1963 [McD email], …

• Water. Some early lodges (especially at Hotham) were deliberately located near springs or soaks, so water could be easily piped into the building. But most lodges made do with rainwater tanks. Conventional roof gutters are destroyed by slides of snow on the roof, so gutters were usually suspended below the eaves with holes drilled in the valleys of corrugated iron roofing to allow water to drip into the gutters below them. Eventually reticulated water supply systems were installed, Buller got theirs in 1964 and 1965.

• Sewage. Long drop dunnies were standard in the early years. A small shed was positioned over a deep hole. After a few years, when the hole was filled, it was covered up with dirt, a new hole was dug and the shed was moved to the new location. When ski resorts began to consolidate, long drops were no longer appropriate, so clubs had to go to the expense of installing septic tanks and having them maintained and pumped out. Then came town sewage with treatment plants located some distance from buildings. Mt Buller lodges were connected in a staged programme starting in 1972 [document attached to McD email], unsure of other resorts at this stage, but there were protests about fecal contamination of the Delatite River circa late 1970s, so Buller’s sewage treatment may have been less than perfect at that time, or perhaps the old septic tanks were leaking? Baw Baw was sewered in ‘the latter half of the seventies'. With the advent of widespread snowmaking systems, and with limited water supplies at the top of mountains (except for Falls Creek which had Rocky Valley Lake), ‘grade A’ water from the waste water plants was utilised for snowmaking. (Hotham may have been the first?), leading to inevitable jokes about ‘the snow is shit at Hotham’. I think Buller also uses waste water for snowmaking?

Then came utilities built and provided by the ski resort management boards. They were widely supported by the skiing public, but the cost presented problems to clubs who were already struggling with high overheads. To a club member arriving at their lodge, walking in and turning on a light switch was vastly more convenient than stumbling out to a generator shed in bad weather with a torch and trying to get the often temperamental contraption to work.

Dates of connection RCH had mains electricity and gas connected to Hotham lodge in 1985 and sewage in 86, “no power or mains water at RCH Buller until 1967”. Other lodges at Hotham and Buller may have been earlier? From memory Hotham had a central town generator before connection to the grid?

Food and dining

Not surprisingly, all club lodges included a communal kitchen. Typically a club provided non perishable basics such as salt and sugar and those staying at the lodge brang their own food and cooked their own meals. But some clubs went further, either hiring a cook or rostering groups of guests to cook a communal dinner, typically once a week for each guest. Club histories are full of the complexities (and occasional disasters) of such operations and Ormond Ski Club even had a committee member with the responsibility of buying food for the lodge and arranging for it to be delivered each week. Clubs that ate together maintained that it fostered a broader communal spirit within the club, a person eating a meal while sitting next to someone they wouldn’t have otherwise spoken to led to closer ties and friendships.

Before the 1990s things like food allergies and vegetarianism were very rare and if a person didn’t like something like fish, well they could put up with it for one night because the next night they would be served a favourite that everybody liked. At the time, there was a strong social pressure throughout society not to be a ‘fussy eater’. But by the turn of the century non standard diets had become far more common and they had to be taken into account. The extra effort needed to cater for all these vaying food preferences, along with a more private, less communal trend in broader society often spelt the end of communal food preparation and dining, although a few clubs still do it.

Also mention the more modern trend in many club lodges of a lodge manager preparing a cooked breakfast for everyone.

Transport

Getting to the ski fields presented its own challenges to early ski clubs. The roads to each resort had different problems.

Dates roads were sealed: Buller pre mid 70s, Falls ???, Hotham 1990s, Baw Baw post mid 1980s, Donna Buang circa 1975, Buffalo ???

After the war transport to the resorts was fairly basic by the standards of today, but with petrol rationing in force until 1951, vehicles heading up the rough gravel roads were usually loaded with as many passengers and as much luggage as could be cramed in. For work parties, clubs on a tight budget would often hire a removalists van with windows on the sides. Two rows of removable seats were bolted to the floor along its length. Mostly unsecured personal luggage and building material was squeezed into anywhere people were not sitting.

A 1949 work party already had plenty of excitement on the way up [to Buller]… when the furniture van ran off the road… without serious injury, especially as there were two cartons of gelignite on board rolled up in a matress. Ann Crawford. A proud achievement: 50 years of YHA on Mt Buller 1947 - 1997. YHA Vic, 1997. p. 20.

Falls Creek had the best road. It was built in 1938 for the Kiewa hydro electric scheme and maintained to a high standard. However the road had a lot of heavy vehicle traffic, so it could not be open for normal traffic at all times. The problem was compounded by H Williams the puritan boss of the scheme who appears not to have approved of what he saw as flippant leisure pursuits. This meant the gate at Mt Beauty was closed to skiers more often than it had to be and at times it was only open a few hours a day. Things were improved by the interference of Tom Mitchell, former Australian ski champion and MP for Benambra who championed the causes of skiers for his whole time in state parliament.

Quote some of the skiers grumbles about restricted access [Look in Howe, Julian and Ski Horizon] Also look through Williams unpublished memoirs to see if he mentions why he closed the road so much.

Hotham had the most extreme road, much of which was on a windy ridgetop high above the treeline. It was (and occasionally still is) closed by strong winds and snow drifts. Mention Eric Johnson Gravbrots horse sled service via Bon Accord Spur, skiers getting lost when road was only kept open as far as Mt St Bernard, etc. Cover reluctance of Melbourne skiers to use the far more reliable and sheltered road from Omeo, mostly due to greater distance.

Buller got a road all the way to the Chalet circa 1939, but after the war it was subjected to far higher traffic levels than it was designed for (similar to Donna before the 1933 rebuild of its road). Cars got bogged, blocked and went over the edge {Koomerang p.20]. Colourful stories of difficult access in chapter 2 of CSIR history. As late as [?the turn of the century?] the road was blocked by a landslide for a few days.

In the days before the road was cleared, Buller had an oversnow service, of sorts, based at Dump Inn (later renamed Welcome Lodge). It seems the usual practice was to park cars at or below Dump Inn and walk up to the lodges, with extra luggage delivered by horse sleigh (later ex army 4wd). Dump Inn had refreshments (and accommodation, at least in its later days). Owners: Eric: Johnson Gravbrot 194? - 1950, Graham Calcutt 1950 - c.53, added extensions. Harold Cumming c1953 - c1956 who rebuilt it, but it then burnt down. Cumming then moved to Tasmania where he built the first ski lift on Mt Mawson before it was also destroyed by fire. Finally he moved to Falls Creek where he built a cafe and ski hire which operated successfully for many years and which did not burn down. [Dump Inn sources: Ski Horizon magazine, club histories, esp. CSIR pp. 31 - 33.]

Baw Baw, long, narrow, windy and quite steep on final approach to village.

Donna. Precis the road section of the transport chapter of the Donna history.

Buffalo, no clubs but it DID actually have a good road, although being a toll road all year round did impact summer visitation.

Extra work required, write paragraphs on: 

The unique experience of club life. Both living in the lodges and administration, membership, etc.

LCC recommendations in 1978-ish for ski resorts to be separated from the then managing bureaucracies.

The disaster of the ARC. In May 1985 the Alpine Resorts Commission took over management of all ski resorts in Victoria except for Mt Buffalo. Before then… [explain former admin arrangements]. This appeared to be a sensible arrangement but the high cost of maintaining a separate bureaucracy for ski resorts combined with things such as inflexible building regulations, often applied retrospectively to existing buildings had a heavy impact on ski clubs and businesses across Victoria…

ARC replaced by independent RMBs, government appointed rather than elected by stakeholders.

Building codes, mostly sensible, if expensive (such as fire regs), but some quite mad such as exit doors required to open outwards and bathroom windows vent thing.

Extra expenses, reasons for them.

JNB's eloquent rant.

Expensive plans, in particular the circa 2012? report that decided that most buildings at Baw Baw were sub standard and that the struggling small resort should be largely demolished and rebuilt. This report was paid for from funds paid by the stakeholders. Needless to say this totally bonkers report has been ignored, no clubs or businesses at Baw Baw have the money to do this, so the resort would close if the reports findings were imposed on Baw Baw.

Ski club peak bodies

1920s and 30s. The SCV takes the lead and doesn’t want to share

In NSW and Tasmania, state wide peak bodies for ski clubs were established in [the early 1930s]. Despite suggestions from xxx and yyy ski clubs in 1932[?} that a “statewide ski council” should be created, there was no peak body in Victoria until 1947 and even then, it didn’t include one of the most active and important ski clubs amongst its membership.

Why was this so? The Ski Club of Victoria was, by 10 months, the oldest ski club in the state and it took upon itself the role of representing the interests of skiers in general. Other early clubs appear to have been more focused on actual skiing and, in the 1920s, were happy for the SCV to take on this task. However a perception gradually spread that the SCV was not consulting with its peers and decisions and lobbying were being undertaken without consultation. So in 1932?, a proposal was put forward by XXX and YYY that a ‘statewide ski council’ should be formed to represent the interests of all skiers. It is not clear why nothing eventuated from this proposal, as similar bodies had been (or were being) formed in NSW and Tassie, but it may have been due to what appears to be an increasingly self important attitude from the SCV committee that did not want to surrender their self proclaimed ‘leadership’ of skiing in Victoria.

No memoirs discussing ski politics from people involved in either side of the issue have come to light, so what follows is based on information gleaned from ski magazines, yearbooks, archives, newspapers, minutes and chats to a couple of other people interested in Victorian ski history. Essentially it has been pieced together into what is hopefully a consistent story. [An attempt has been made to be balanced, but what follows might read as rather anti SCV, but, apart form SCV publications, no documents explaining or defending their behaviour have been found yet, so try to find some sort of document advocating the SCVs views at this time and use the information in it to be more balanced.] … [Perhaps the SCV wished to emulate the Ski Club of Great Britain which they seemed to admire? The SC of GB was apparently the peak body for ski interests in that country, although the obvious difference is the Britain didn’t have ski lodges and resorts close to major cities like Victoria did.]

Tensions between the SCV and some other clubs and individuals appear to have gradually increased and in 1938? finally became public when the SCV openly condemned a decision by the Donna Buang committee of management to build a new ski run on the north east side of the mountain. A short article contributed to The Argus newspaper by the SCV condemned the decision as it was made by others rather than the SCV alone and belittled the work by other clubs and public bodies on the mountain. [Copy the article AND my explanation of it from the Donna history]. At about he same time [give the year] a number of clubs [list them] that had been loosely affiliated with the SCV, formally disaffiliated.

It is not clear exactly what made the SCV so insular in the 1930s and why they apparently felt so threatened by other clubs. But just as tensions were coming to a head, the Black Friday fires of January 1939 burnt four ski lodges on four different mountains: the Hotham Heights Chalet, the St Bernard Hospice, the Feathertop Bungalow and the MWC cabin on Donna Buang. Huge areas of the mountains were also destroyed and many ski runs were damaged, so it appears that everybody was busy trying to recover from the disaster. Seven months later World War Two erupted and petty ski politics took a back seat for the six year duration of the war.

Federation of Victorian Ski Clubs and Victorian Ski Association (later Victorian Snowsports Association).

In the 1920s the Ski Club of Victoria was by far the biggest ski club (and the oldest by circa 10 months if the revived Bright Alpine Club is discounted) and it took upon itself the role of advocating for all skiers in Victoria. With the growth of skiing in the 1930s and the creation of dozens of new ski clubs, the preeminence of the SCV began to be questioned and a proposal to create a ?Victorian Ski Council? was floated as early as ?1932 or 33?. However the SCV continued to describe itself as "the ski club" (add link to Argus article) and other clubs began to view the SCV as advocating for its own interests rather than those of other clubs or the skiing community as a whole. One of many instances was the SCV opposing the building of a new ski run in 1937? at Donna Buang (Victoria's busiest ski destination at the time), apparently because the decision to construct the run was made by the local committee of management which included a number of interested parties rather than the SCV alone.

From 1930 some clubs had paid an 'association' fee to the SCV, but a perception of increasing arrogance led the University Ski Club and Wangaratta Ski Club to disaffiliate in 1938, Warburton Ski Club in 1939, with several other clubs also serving ties at about the same time. Country ski clubs closer

to the snowfields also felt that their interests were being ignored by the SCV, leading them to establish the North East District Ski Association (NEDSA) in 1937.

Tensions continued to grow until the Black Friday fires of January 1939 burnt ski lodges on four mountains, when attention was diverted to recovering from the catastrophe. With the outbreak of the Second World War seven months later, the issue was put on hold for the duration. But in August 1944 the SCV incorporated and included the following in its Memorandum and Articles of Association:

3. (d) To undertake and exercise control of competition events and trials in connection with the sports… of skiing, skating, mountaineering, walking, trail riding, fishing and other out-door sports or pastimes in the State of Victoria.

That was a fairly broad range of activities and while the SCV never attempted to ‘exercise control’ of any other activity, over the next decade they fought very hard against other ski clubs to control skiing in Victoria.

Following the bumper 1946 ski season, a view developed amonst other ski clubs that rather than toning down its perceived pre war arrogance, the SCV was acting in an increasingly bullying and out of touch manner. This led to most of the leading ski clubs of the time creating the Federation of Victorian Ski Clubs (FOVSC) in 1947 as a peak body for clubs and inviting all other clubs to join. Not surprisingly the SCV refused and they responded with what was effectively an 11 page declaration of war in their club magazine.

The FOVSC and its constituent clubs appear to have been remarkably polite in the battles that followed, always acknowledging the SCV as a a large and important club, but denying it was entitled to any particular rights that were not due to other clubs. Slowly the FOVSC influence expanded. It started Ski Horizon, a successful monthly magazine, it took over production of the Victorian section of the Australian Ski Yearbook, took over the local affiliation to the Ski Club of Great Britain (something that was especially prized by the SCV) and created a separate ski racing body to entitle members of FOVSC clubs to compete outside the state, as the SCV refused to acknowledge other clubs unless they paid an annual ‘affiliation fee’. (In 1953 it was £2/2/- for the first ten racers and 2/- for each additional racer.)

The post war ski boom vastly increased the number of skiers and the number of ski clubs, making the SCV's stance that it was "the" ski club increasingly absurd. However the committee of that club slowly changed and newer committee members were less hostile to other clubs. From 1952 they agreed to meet with the FOVSC's "Olive Branch Committee". Faced with declining influence, the SCV began to moderate its position, but in an attempt to save face they insisted on several concessions, including a new name for the peak ski body in Victoria if they were to join and that publication of Ski Horizon, which they perceived as a competitor to their own club magazine Schuss, should cease. After further negotiations the Victorian Ski Association (VSA) was formed in July 1955 and the last issue of Ski Horizon was published in December of that year. Schuss became the magazine of the VSA and now represented the views of all groups in the ski industry until it was sold in 1961 and incorporated into Ski Australia magazine.

[Insert somewhere] However these divisions were mostly at office bearer level and leading figures in clubs that were members of the FOVSC such as Don Bennett (ACV) and Warrand Begg (USC) remained members of the SCV during nearly a decade of more or less open hostility. Other important and influential clubs of the time such as BMW didn't join FOVSC and seem to have had informal ties (or a least friendships) with the SCV, although they were never affiliated.

This dispute lasted for two decades from the mid 1930s to the mid 1950s and consumed an enormous amount of energy that could have been more usefully directed elsewhere, but with the issue resolved, ski clubs in Victoria went on to become highly successful over the next 30 years.

It’s interesting that no such inter club tensions existed in NSW and Tasmania. In those states peak bodies for all parties with an interest in skiing were created in the 1930s and relationships between clubs were fairly smooth.

It should be noted that today the Ski Club of Victoria is one of the most pleasant and active clubs on Mt Buller and with the exception of a few controversial claims made in their club history published in 1982-ish, there have been no significant provocations or clashes with other ski clubs for over 65 years.

[The above section is very rough. it should be expanded, extensively revised and sentences that repeat previous information combined.]

Add a paragraph on later VSA history, its rise and slow decline. … The last post on the Victorian Snowsports Association Facebook page was on 1 April 2014 and, rather bizarrely their website address has now been taken over by an Indian guru.

Today there is no Victorian peak body for all ski interests or even for clubs. The nearest thing to a peak body or lobby group for skiing is Ski and Snowboard Australia which mainly oversees racing.

Alternate effort to cover this subject in a balanced way

It is hard to work out what motivated the Ski Club of Victorias difficulty with other ski clubs as early as the 1930s and its outright hostility to the FOVSC when it is established in 1947.

My best guess is that the SCV very much wanted to emulate the Ski Club of Great Britain which was the peak body for skiers in that country. However skiing opportunites in Britain are limited at best, so the main focus of British skiers was on The Continent with (as far as I know) no club lodges built in the UK at the time. By contrast day trips to the snowfileds were popular in Victoria and ski clubs began building their own club lodges in the 1930s and by the late 40s dozens of club lodges were being built every year. So in this context there was no way the SCV could remain aloof and claim to be the most important organisation. Yes, it was still the biggest ski club, but several other clubs such as the U.S.C. were also large and there were dozens of new vibrant and energetic ski clubs jumping into the market. So even by the mid 1930s, any thoughts by the SCV that they could emulate the SCGB were out of touch with the reality in Victoria and by the late 1940s such ideas were preposterous.

People I’ve spoken to who remembered the decade after the war had firm opinions on the subject, but never articulated the reasons why. Many club skiers of the time were also involved in bushwalking clubs, so it’s interesting to compare the SCV with the Melbourne Walking club, the states oldest (established in 1894) who welcomed other clubs, didn’t feel threatened by them and enthusiastically embarced the creation of the Federation of Victorian Walking Clubs in 193X.

The enmity of the SCV towards other ski clubs is made even more confusing by the fact that several prominent skiers were members of both the SCV and clubs that created the FOVSC. Don Bennett was the leader of a group that controversially broke away from the SCV to form the Alpine Club of Victoria in (1944?). Despite this Bennett remained an office bearer in the SCV until the early 1950s by which time the SCV was starting to become reconciled with other ski clubs.. Lynette Sheridan sums up the situation in Shes and Skis (p. 57) by noting that the Australian Womens Ski Club was a foundation member of FOVSC was in the paradoxical situation of supporting and having a say in the affairs of the Federation and at the same time being affiliated with the SCV, which remained aloof from and antagonistic to the FOVSC.

After an ‘Olive Branch Committee’ was formed by the Federation a decison was arrived at whereby the SCV would not have to ‘lose face’ and join the Federation, instead the Federation was disolved and its constituent clubs together with the SCV would create the new Victorian Ski Association.

North East District Ski Association (NEDSA)

No discussion of ski clubs in Victoria can overlook NEDSA. The North Eastern District Ski Association was established at Hotham Heights on 25 September 1937 after Wangaratta Ski Club arranged a meeting. Albury, Benalla and Bright Ski Clubs were also founding members. During the Second World War NEDSA went into recess from 1940, but was reactivated in 1946.

NEDSA was the first peak body to represent the interests of a range of ski clubs in Victoria and gave its member clubs a level of influence beyond the region. Apart from lobbying for the interests of skiers in their part of the state, NEDSA ran inter club races and was instrumental in establishing the Federation of Victoria Ski Clubs in 1947. While 20 clubs were members in the early 1960s [list them in a text box if possible], after the establishment of FOVSC (and the incorporation of that body into the Victorian Ski Association in 1955), the influence of NEDSA gradually waned, and it mainly became a body coordinating inter club races. By 1968 only Albury, Bogong, Myrtleford, Upper Murray, Wagga and Wang remained as members and NEDSA was disbanded in 1971, with its remaining assets being donated to the ?Falls Creek Race squad? (or similar name).

Things on clubs in the north east to investigate further:

NEDSA membership. Albury, Beechworth, Benalla, Bogong, Myrtleford, Upper Murray, Wagga, Wangratta and a few others. (?Tallangatta?) (Apparently not Murray Valley Ski Club) It had 20 member clubs in the early 1960s.

In 1950… Already the north-east has many ski clubs- Wangaratta, Bright, Myrtleford, Beechworth, Bogong, Skyline, Tallangatta, Maude and Yellow Girl*, Telemark (Omeo ), Omeo Division of Ski Club of Victoria, and others. From: THE ALPINE REGIONS OF VICTORIA; SKI-ING AND TOURIST RESORTS. REPORT OF THE STATE DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE, 1950. p. 10.

• Maude and Yellow Girl were originally two adjacent gold mines near Glen Wills to the north of Omeo. (The story goes that they were named after the girlfriends or wives of the owners, one was called Maude and the other had blonde hair.) Later the mines were merged into a single operation which continued mining for many years. However I have never heard of a ski club in that area in any other source. So was it a proper ski club or just an informal group of friends from the area who skied together?

Club histories

Links to online club histories in the list below have been included if there is one on their website. Other club histories or reminiscences (short or long) can be hosted for free on their own page on this site. An example is Thomas Whiteside's history of the Murray Valley Ski Club and their lodge at Hotham. (see the main articles tab at the top of the page). Please send other histories to australianmountains (at) gmail.com

This unfinished rough draft will be improved and extended into a proper full length article if I can find the time (or if a few people push me to find the time). Alternately I’m happy to turn it over for someone else to complete, in return for a brief mention in the acknowledgements.

The list does not include school or university ski groups that called themselves clubs, but operated entirely within the larger institutional structure. It also excludes private groups of friends that may have owned a house or flat together and called themselves a club, but which were not incorporated and did not behave like a club.

Links to club websites are shown in blue. In a few cases where the club maintains a low profile and does not have a website, the link is to a Facebook page.

Long format Victorian ski club histories (in addition to brief histories on club websites)

Bennett, Donald. Hotham horizon: the Alpine Club of Victoria. The author, 1987. Hotham and Buller
Crawford, Ann. A proud achievement: 50 years of YHA on Mt Buller 1947 - 1997. YHA, 1997. 58 page booklet. Buller
CSIR Ski Club: the first 70 years. CSIR Ski Club, 2017. Buller, Hotham and Falls
Howe, Bob. Melting tracks: history and memories of Albury Ski Club and early Falls Creek. The author, 2004. Falls
Koomerang Ski Club: the first 50 years 1957-2007. K.S.C., 2007. Part 1 inc. Scotch College SC. Part 2 main history. Buller, Falls, Hotham, Thredbo
Lloyd, Janis. Skiing into history: 1924 - 1984. Ski Club of Victoria, 1986. Mostly Buller but formerly had lodges elsewhere
Martin, Sarah. From first tracks to last drinks: the first 50 years of Ormond Ski Club. O.S.C., 2019. Hotham
McLennan, Jennifer. Not below 5000: a history of the Ski Club of East Gippsland. S.C.E.G., 2001. Hotham
Sheridan, Lynette. Shes and Skis: Golden years of the Australian Women’s Ski Club 1932 - 1982. AWSC, 1983 Buller (and shelter on Hotham)
Sheridan, Lynette. University Ski Club 1929 - 1979. U.S.C, 1988. Hotham, Buller, Falls & Donna
Summers, Merrick. Buller between Summers. 2017? The authors ski adventures, BMW SKi Club is about half the book. Buller
Wangaratta Ski Club. Snow on St Bernard: 1930 - 1980 Wangaratta Ski Club Jubilee book. W.S.C., 1980. [also update book] Hotham area
Whiteside, Thomas. Murray Valley Ski Club: The untold story of a pioneer ski club. 2018. Available online here. Hotham

List of Victorian ski clubs by date established

Links to club website are in blue. A < symbol after the date indicates the club may have been established a little earlier.

Several school 'ski clubs' from the 1930s to the 1980s have not been included on this list as it appears they were simply informal groups run at the whim of a single teacher and not really clubs by any realistic definition of 'club'.

It is likely the list below is incomplete. Please send any corrections or extra information to australianmountains at gmail.com

Pre Second World War

1888.  Bright Alpine Club. Re-invigorated as Bright Ski Club circa 1927 and lasted until WWII. 'Reformed' in 1954. Now defunct
1924.  Ski Club of Victoria. Built at Donna Buang 1934, Buller 194X, Hotham 197X and bought lodge at Falls. All now sold or abandoned except Buller
1925.  Chamois Ski Club. Founded by SCV president and office bearers after apparent internal club dispute. Originally named Victorian Alpine Ski Club . . . . . . [or something close to that] for a short time, then Chamois Club of Australia, before later becoming Chamois Ski Club.
1926.  Omeo Ski Club. Name changed to Ski Club of East Gippsland in 1952 to attract members from a wider area. Short club history on website
1927.  Mt Buffalo Alpine Club. Now defunct
1928< Melbourne Walking Club. Despite the name, club members were also very active skiers from late 20s. Built lodges at Donna Buang & Buller
1929.  University Ski Club. Built lodges at Donna Buang, Hotham, Buller. Bought an existing lodge at Falls Creek
1930.  Wangaratta Ski Club. A very active club from the 1930s. Built a lodge at Mt St Bernard in 1946.
1931.  Warburton Ski Club. Appears to have folded circa 1950 when Donna Buang ceased to be a ski resort, but locals continued to ski for a few years
1932. Australian Women's Ski Club. Victorian Branch (lodge at Buller).
1934. Edelweiss Ski Club. Founded July 1934. Built the second club lodge on Hotham in 1947. Club still exists but has a low profile.
1934. Junior Ski Club of Australia. Founded by Tom Mitchell & Graeme Austin. Despite name, it was an adult club. Had some of Victoria's best skiers as
members, who owned majority of shares in Buller Chalet. Revived 1947, in 'comparative dormancy' in early 1950s, revived 1954 - ?. ASYB 1947 p.73
1934< Rover Scouts. Developed into several ski oriented 'crews' including Alpine Crew (Bogong High Plains) & Captain Hurley(?) Crew (Mt Erica)
1934. Melbourne University Ski Club. (The University Ski Club split in 1934 to allow a Melb Uni student only club to contest "intervarsity" races.)
1935. Albury Ski Club. While Albury is in NSW, the club draws members from both sides of the border and built its lodge at Falls Creek.
1937< 58th Battalion Benalla Ski Club. Named after a First World War army unit (which has a Wikipedia page). Appears to have gone into dormancy
circa 1940 and not to have been revived post WWII, but a new Benalla Ski Club was formed in 1958
1938. Myrtleford Ski Club. Built at Falls Creek in 1949 (or possibly 1950?). Website has brief history and they are working on a full history.

1940 - 1949

1940. Bogong Ski Club. Falls Creek. Formed by Kiewa hydro employees. Website has a detailed club history.

1944. Alpine Club of Victoria. Split from SCV. Built lodges at Hotham (194x) and Buller (195x).

1945. CSIR Ski Club. Built first club lodge on Buller in 1946, built at Falls Creek in 1962 and bought Drift Chalet at Hotham in 1973. Historical timeline.

1946. Bull Lodge Ski Club. Built unauthorised 4 bed lodge at Buller in 1946 (demolished 1948), were instrumental in pushing for Buller subdivision
          and in establishing FOVSC. Club dissolved in 1951 when key committee members transferred overseas.

1946. Monsanto Ski Club, later M Ski Club. Buller lodge built 1950, but in 1948 built an annex on YHA ‘Shiver Shanty’ for use by its members.

1946. Skyline Ski Club. Another club formed by mostly Kiewa hydro employees. Falls Creek lodge occupied 1948. Now defunct

1946 YHA Snow Committee (Buller) Started as volunteer group with members doing most of the work, members left from the early 1960s for other clubs as it slowly became corporatised and evolved into a more commercial discount hotel/backpacker chain. Coonamar and Ringwood, both on Buller, abasorbed a lot of former YHA skiers
1947. Australian Postal Institute Ski Club, Name changed to Apira Ski Club in 1980s. Buller lodge ready 1949. Website has a club history. Download
1947. Tallangatta and District Ski Club. Mt Wills lodge in 1948. The club declined in the late 50s and was reformed in the late 1960s, now small but still exists. No website, but a history of foundation and lodge building at this link.

1948. Mansfield Division of SCV, founded, later became Mansfield Ski Cub. Dissolved October 1957.
1948. Omega Ski Club. Split from SCV. Built Buller lodge 1948. Website has some history and background on the relocation of the lodge in 1985.
1948. Timberline Ski Club. Buller, website has very brief history
1948. Ullr Ski Club. Buller lodge built late 40s by pre war skiers. Club dissolved and lodge sold to Rino Grollo in 1981. Lodge demolished & rebuilt 1986

1949. Benmore Ski Club. Buller, built summer 1951 - 52
1949. Yurredla Ski Club. Buller lodge occupied 1950 and rebuilt 1979. Formed by Brighton Rover Scouts.
1949 circa. Reindeer Ski Club. Established by members of Brunswick Rover Scouts & employees of the Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation. Buller lodge built summer 1951 -52.

1940s. Bahnfrei Ski Club. Very active club on Baw Baw and one of the two clubs that effectively bought Baw Baw to the attention of skiers outside Gippsland and made it into a resort. Disbanded in 1953 after key members moved out of Gippsland.
1940s. Beechworth Ski Club. "inactive" by 1953
1940s. Boondoo. (Hotham) Originally Western District Ski Club but name changed before 1949.
1940s. Howqua Ski Club. Inactive by 1953
1940s. Lazy Eight Ski Club. Inactive by 1953
1940s. Moose Ski Club. The "Meese" were one of the most energetic, high profile and flamboyant clubs on Buller until their lodge was burnt 6/1955
1940s. Rongbuk Ski Club. Inactive by 1953
1940s. Tanjil Ski Club.
1940s. Telemark Ski Club. Owned Johnson's Hut on Mt Nelse. Merged with Ski Club of East Gippsland in 1966. Not associated with today’s Telemark Nordic Ski Club

1950 - 1959

1950. BMW Ski Club. Brighton Mountain Wanderers. Lodge finished 51. Were major players on Buller, friendly with SCV so never joined FOVSC
1950? Mawson Skiing and Touring Club. Buller lodge 1955. Formed by St Kilda Rovers. Club dissolved and sold lodge 1994. Mawson flats now on site
1950. Murray Valley Ski Club. Cobram and Numurkah area. Built lodge near Hotham in 1953, defunct circa 2006. Club history is on this website

1951. Gliss Ski Club. Buller. Formed by employees of the Government Aircraft Factory. Website has a brief history.
1951. Upper Murray Ski Club. Corryong area membership, Built Lind Lodge at Six Mile Plateau beyond Nariel in 1951, sold 1968 to Forests Commission.
Reliable reports say a “Corryong Ski Club“ operated a tow on Round Mtn until early 80s. Unsure if that was the same club as Upper Murray S.C.

1952 or earlier. Cedar Ski Club (Buller)
1952 or earlier. Woollybutt Ski Club (Buller). Was "in recess by 1953"
1952 or earlier. General Motors Holdens Ski Club. (Buller)
1952 or earlier. Dandenong Ski Club. Buller
1952 or earlier. Buller Ski Club.
1952 or earlier. Harding Ski Club.
1952 or earlier. Tali Ski Club.

1954 or earlier. Belmore. Buller. (as distinct from Benmore) Did this exist or is mention of it a typo?
1954 or earlier. RAAF. Buller. Lodge may have been named Yeti? Club still operating in 1960s.
1954 or earlier. Army. Buller.
1954 or earlier. Gray Rocks. Buller.
1954 or earlier. Southern Cross. Buller.
1954 or earlier. Timberline. Buller.

1952. Kiewa Valley Ski Club. (Falls Creek)

1953. Geelong Ski Club. Lodge at Buller.
1953. RAN Ski Club. For serving and ex navy. Buller, later Perisher & Thredbo. Website has a brief history. 
1953 or earlier. Southern Cross Ski Club. Buller.
1953. Mt Buller Ski Jumping Club.

1954. Double B Ski Club. Stands for Buller Bachelors. Claims to be the first A frame lodge in Australia. Website has a short history.

1955. Castlemaine Division of SCV. Dissolved early 60s when many of its members became foundation members of Falls Creek division of the Australian Alpine Club. Widow of probable founder says it was in 1954

1956. AKLA Ski Club. Buller lodge finished 5 months by June 56..
1956 Caibou Ski Club. Buller. A-frame lodge, but now flats on site. Lasted until at least 2003 as photos on Flickr.
1956. ICI Ski Club, now Icicles Ski Club. Buller. Website has a history page.
1956. OLOS Ski Club. Our Lady Of the Snows. Not surprisingly a club for Roman Catholics. Buller lodge 1957, Hotham flat 1981

1957. Koomerang Ski Club. Originally Scotch Ski Club which was open to former students and parents. Name Changed to Koomerang in 19XX. Built on Buller 1958, then Thredbo in 1965, Falls Creek in 1973 and bought an existing lodge on Hotham in 1982. Incorporated the informal Scotch College Ski Club which had involved teachers taking students on ski holidays since the 1920s.

1958. Benalla Ski Club. Buller. Replaced a 1930s ski club in the Benalla area which went into recess during the war and wasn’t revived post war.
1958. Ringwood Ski Club. Buller lodge built not long after formation, rebuilt 2006.
1958. Spark Ski Club. Buller. Established by former Malvern Rover Scouts.

1959 Wagga Alpine Ski Club. Wagga is in NSW but club built a lodge at Falls 1962, extended a few times until late 1970s. Rebuilt 2020.

1950s mid. OGGS Ski Club. Buller. For former students of Geelong Grammar School.

1950s late. Iltis Ski Club. Buller, lodge occupied 1962.

1950s. Rob Gray Ski Club. Has a lodge at Baw Baw.

1950s (probably). Cortina Ski Lodge. Buller. Small club that has evolved into six families controlling a room within the building.

Others

"Clubs that have fallen by the wayside ... Mt Buller Eagles, Delatite, ..., ..., Downhillers, Paradise, Eureka, Youth League, White Star, Alpha, ..., ..., Woolybutt." (Ski Horizon 9/1953 p.5)

Matterhorn, sold their Buller lodge or site to AJAX who built their lodge in 1972

55 Ski clubs in Victoria, not counting country or school divisions of the SCV. Ski Horizon 12/1953 p.2 

Active clubs at Buller Jan 54. Alpine, BMW, USC, Ullr, Harding, Moose, Yurredla, Reindeer, Southern Cross, GMH (name changed to Firn c.1953), Gliss, API, Benmore, Belmore, Chamois, AWSC, Cedar, Dandenong, Gray Rocks, Mawson, Melb Walking Club, Monsanto, Morgan Pattern, Omega, CSIR, Timberline, YHA, Kandahar, RAAF, SCV. (Ski Horizon 1/1954 p.8)

1954 or earlier ...). Dawn (Falls Creek). Morona Towalla (aka Mulligatawny. Had building at Falls Creek)

Joined FOVSC in 1955. Morona Towalla (Mulligatawny), Twenty-Five, Elk Lodge

Membership of larger ski clubs in 1954 (approximate). (Ski Horizon 7/54 p3)
SCV. 1600, USC 500, YHA Snow Committee 200, Albury 200,
'The total number of clubs in Victoria is more than 60 with total membership of about 4,000 - 5,000.'
[Around 30 Clubs were members of the Federation of Victorian Ski Clubs at the time. Notable non members were the SCV, BMW, country clubs affiliated with NEDSA and some of the newer or smaller urban clubs.]

Dawn Falls Creek. Lodge moved to Windy Corner in 1986 to become SES HQ [JNB p.196]

1960 - 1969

1960. Cawarra Ski Club. Buller.
1960. Tatry Ski Club. Buller. One of two ski clubs in Victoria for the Polish community.
1960. Wanderers Ski Club. Ran package ski holidays to Falls and Buffalo, day trips to Buller. 30 buses departed in 1970. Unclear if it was really a club

1961. Mt Baw Baw Ski Club gained independence, formerly Baw Baw Div of SCV. 1st lodge at Baw Baw in 1945. Website history page & historic photos
1961. Lonsdale Ski Club. Has a lodge at Baw Baw

1962. Blue Eyes Ski Club. Lodge at Buller. Established by the Latvian community. 
1962. BSM Ski Club. Established by employees of architects Bates Smart and McCutcheon. Lodge at Falls Creek. Website inaccessible to
non members, but has Instagram and Facebook pages.
1962. Carey Alpine Club. Falls Creek. For former students of Carey Grammar. Website has brief history.
1962. Nutcracker Ski Club. Buller lodge occupied in 1965. Website has a club history.
1962. Royal Children's Hospital Ski Club, now RCH Alpine Club. Built at Buller mid 60's, rebuilt 81 - 84, Hotham early 70s. Website has short history

1963. ANARE Ski Club. Established by former members of Antarctic expeditions, lodge at Baw Baw 1968. Website has a brief history.
1963. Australian Alpine Club, Falls Creek. Some founders came from Castlemaine Division of SCV. Original lodge built 1963 (Now Red Onion), new lodge on new site built 1971.
1963. Collegians Ski Club. Built lodge at Buller in 1963. Established by former students of Wesley College.
1963. Coonamar Ski Club. Buller lodge occupied for 1964 season.
1963. McMillan Ski Club. Hotham. Website has a club history.
1963. Neringa Ski Club. Buller. Originally established by the Lithuanian community. Website has a brief history.
1963. Old Paradian’s Association Ski Club, now Opal Ski Club. Buller lodge built 1967, website has a brief history.
1963. Oldina Ski Club. Falls Creek lodge built 1965 and a flat at Buller in late 1970s. Website has a history page. 
1963. Australian Alpine Club, Patscherkofel. Buller lodge 1966, later rebuilt on same site. Severed ties with AAC in 1980s and
became the autonomous Patscherkofel Lodge
1963. Trapdoor Ski Club. Built Hotham lodge in 1965. Website has brief history.

1964. Alkira Ski Club. Buller lodge built 1965. Website has a brief history.
1964 or earlier. Mansfield Ski Club, now Mansfield Ski Lodge. Buller..
1964. Nomad Ski Club. Buller. In 1993 club reorganised, possibly entirely new membership? Demolished c.2020, website now inactive.
1964. Skilib Alpine Club. Lodge on Buller, flat at Falls Creek. Website has a few sentences of history..
1964? VOSGES Ski Club. Nothing known except photo of cover of a booklet titled VOSGES Ski Club Sawmill Settlement
. . . . . . and Mirimbah August 1964 - October 1971. While this document (spotted in former Flinders Island butter factory)
. . . . . . appears to be about Buller, the Vosges region of north east France has several ski resorts.

1965. Corio Ski Club. (Buller)
1965. Du Nord Ski Club. Baw Baw
1965. Lachen Ski Club. Club formed 1965? Hotham lodge complete 1973. Shifted to Finley, NSW after 1995 season & replaced by Lachen Apartments
1965. Mt Bogong Club. Partly a ski club, partly a hut group. Maintains huts and skis on Victoria's highest peak. Not associated with Bogong Ski Club

1960s mid. Terama Ski Club. Buller. Website has a history page on the clubs foundation.

1966 Huski Ski Club. Buller. Lodge rebuilt in 2000
1966 or earlier. Schuss Ski Club. Lodges at Buller, Falls and Thredbo.
1966. Tivoli Ski Club. Falls Creek lodge finished 1968. Originally founded by German speaking migrants. Website has a short history.

1967. Wonthaggi Ski Club. Baw Baw lodge built 1967, club may be older. {Lodge may have reverted to resort after bad 2013 season?]

1968. Karnulurra Ski Club. Hotham lodge occupied 1969. Website has brief history.
1968. Marouka Ski Club. Hotham lodge built 1968. Established by members of the KODAK social club.
1968. Ormond Ski Club. Hotham. Initially for graduates of Ormond College at Melb Uni. A well written and produced club history was published in 2019
1968. RVIB Ski Club, now VIBE Ski Club (for blind skiers). Had use of Baw Baw lodge 1977 - 2008. (May have been evicted by Vision Aust or RMB?)

1969. Swindlers Valley Ski Club. Website has a couple of lines of history.
1969. Wongungarra Alpine Ski Club. Hotham.

1960s prob. Banksia Ski Club.
.1960s prob. Benbullen Ski Club. Baw Baw..
1960s prob. Bunerong Ski Club. Baw Baw.
1960s prob. Coora Valley Ski Club. Baw Baw.
No date. Meki Ski Club. Buller lodge built 1960s. Website not active in 2021, but their Facebook page is.
No date. Mitre Ski Club. Buller. Probably 1960s..
1960s prob. Mulligatawny Skiers Association. Buller. [Unsure of relationship with 1950s Falls Creek club of similar name.]

1970 - 1979

1970. Bowna Ski Club, now Riverina Alpine Ski Club. Falls Creek. Lodge extended 1979.

1971. Austen Alpine Club. Established by BHP employees. Hotham lodge occupied 1974. Website has a brief club history.
1971. Langi-Taan Ski Club. Hotham. Lodge occupied 1973? Website has brief details on clubs foundation.

1972. Ajax Ski Club. Buller. Ajax stands for Associated Judean Athletic Clubs. Lodge finished for 1973 season, bought site from Matterhorn S.C.
1972. Asgaard Alpine Club. Hotham, website has amusing history. Prime site to be developed into Davenport Central which will include a new Asgaard
1972. Australian Alpine Club, Anton Huette. Hotham, AAC lodges are autonomous but members have limited rights to stay at other affiliates
1972. Banool Ski Club. Club formed to buy Banool Lodge at Falls Creek.
1971. Langrenn Ski Club. Formed from a group of National Fitness Council regulars by Geoff Crabtree to buy a flat at Imaj in Falls Creek. Brief history
1972. Telemark Nordic Ski Club. Based in Albury / Wodonga, originally Corryong. Not associated with Telemark S. C. which merged with SCEG in 1966

1973 or earlier. IHP Alpine Club. (One Horse Power), named after the output of their generator.) 1973 Hotham lodge is for sale and run by
Hotham Accom Services. 'After 40+ years,  members of 1HP would like to encourage a younger generation to enjoy the lodge into the future'
1973. Anton Huette, Australian Alpine Club. Hotham. Self governing Hotham club affiliated with AAC. A page on the history of the lodge.
1973 circa. Jamieson Ski Club. Built a nice hut on Mt Skene c.1974, burnt in 2005. Unclear if this was a proper club or just an informal group of friends

1974. APEA Ski Club. Hotham lodge occupied 1976. Website has brief history. 
1974. Arrabri Ski Club. Hotham lodge occupied 1977. Website has a club history.
1974. Mogul Ski Club. Falls Creek, website has a brief history,

1976. AE Ski Club. Buller. Formed by employees of Applied Engineering. Website has brief history.
1976. Brush Ski Club. Built lodge at Hotham in 1977. 
1976. Merrijig Ski Club. Buller.

1977. Birkebeiner Nordic Ski Club. Mt Beauty. Has a day lodge at Falls Creek. Website has a history page.
1977. Eiger Ski Club. Hotham lodge occupied 1980. Website has a short history.
1977. Mansfield Nordic Ski Club. Still operating in 2002

1978. Australian Disabled Skiers Federation, now Disabled Wintersport Australia.
1978. Eltham Ski Club. Buller.
1978. Everest Lodge. A ski club at Baw Baw.
1978. Melbourne Nordic Ski Club.
1978. Pol-Ski Club. Buller. Originally founded by members of the Polish community.
1978. Star Alpine Ski Club. Buller lodge.

1979. Ascom Alpine Club. Falls Creek. Occupies Ascom Ski Lodge built in 1963.

1970s? Burrumbeep Ski Club. (Hotham)

1970s? Kalyna Ski Club. (Hotham, founded by the Ukranian community)

1970s. Omski. Buller. Founded by Old Melbourne Gramarians. Bought Downhill SC lodge, rebuilt on same site in 1985. Website has very brief history.

1975 or earlier. Nindethana Ski Club. Hotham lodge occupied 1975.

mid 1970s. GAFIA Club. Baw Baw.

mid 1970s. Kongoola Ski Club. Hotham.

mid 70s. Preston Ski Club now Preston Alpine Lodge. Built Buller lodge in 1977.

1970s. Chorki Ski Club. Falls Creek. Established by a group of teachers, thus the club name. Website has a brief history.

1970s. Tallawarra Ski Club. Hotham.

1980 onwards

1980 or earlier. Aadrvark Alpine Club. Hotham lodge occupied 1981.

1980 or earlier. The Lodge Ski Club. Hotham.

1980. Asterix Ski Club. Hotham lodge finished 1982. Website has very brief history.
1980. Bembooka Ski Club. Hotham lodge finished 1981. A page on club history.
1980. Bundarra Ski Club. Hotham.

1981 or earlier. Eumarellah Ski Club. Hotham lodge finished in 1981.

1981 or earlier. Leeton Alpine Sports Club. Hotham lodge occupied 1981.

1983. Back of Baw Baw Nordic Ski Club. Also known as Team Gwinear, May have also been known as Baw Baw Nordic Ski Club?

mid 1980s. St George Alpine Club Hotham. Built lodge at Jindabyne NSW in 1970s, bought 6 bedroom area in Lawlers. Has separate Hotham members

1985. Australian Alpine Club, Dinner Plain. Self governing club affiliated with AAC. Lodge 1987, possibly the last new club to build a lodge in Victoria?

1989. Downhill Ski Club. Buller. It is not clear if it is connected with the original Buller club of same name that appears to have died in 1950s.

No dates (as yet)

No date. Cosela Alpine Club. Falls Creek. Before 1971, probably 1960s?

No date. Club Edski. Baw Baw.

No date. Euroa Ski Club. Presumably evolved from Euroa Division of SCV, whose lawyers were unsuccessful in getting the rights to their hut on SCV land at Buller circa 1970?

No date. John Gardiner Ski Club. Baw Baw.

No date. Gravbrot Ski Club. Hotham.

No date. Jalanga Ski Club. Hotham

No date. Jungfrau Ski Club. Buller.

No date. Ski Players. Hotham.

No date. Skali Ski Club. Has a nice lodge at Baw Baw, interior appears to be an updated 1970s? building

No date. Tempest Ski Club. Has a 1960's looking lodge at Baw Baw. Website not active when checked in 2021.

No date. The Avenue Ski Club. Buller.

No date. Vagabond Ski Club. Hotham.

No date. Valhalla Ski Club. Hotham.

No date. VSL Ski Club. Buller.

No date. Woomargama Ski Club. Falls Creek. Their lodge was sold in 1986 and demolished to make way for Astra.

No date. Womburroo Ski Club. Has a flat in High Plains complex. No info but a member of FCAA

No info. Winterhaven Ski Club, shown on a Buller map, but nothing on Google or Facebook

No date. Mt Bullfight Ski Club. Long lasting Alexandra based nordic ski club. 'Put into recession 2014'

No date. Lake Mountain Ski Club. Operating 2002, appears to be defunct.

No date. Howmans Gap Allstars Inc. A Falls Creek nordic ski club. Active pre 2002 to present.

No date. Pegasus Alpine Club. Hotham.

No date. Peninsula Ski Club. Hotham.

No date. Reynard Ramblers Nordic Ski Club Inc. No information so far, Presumably was active at the Long Plain / Mt Reynard area north of Licola.

No date. Shepparton Alpine Club. Hotham.

No date, Tantani. Hotham. Possibly built 1970s?. Fairly small, hearsay that members were Benamba farmers. Demolished circa 2016.

No date. Tinogra Ski Club. Hotham

No date. The Winter Group Cross Country Ski Club was extremely active in the 1990s. Their former website is no longer live.

Were these lodges ever owned by proper clubs?

Buller resort map shows: Black Tulip, Caribou(x), Club 25, Cobbler, Corviglia Ski Club, Currawong, Delatite, Elk, Firmow, Four Winds, Gonzaga, Howqua, Neverest, 

Falls Creek shows BSM Ski Club, Camber Ski Club

Hotham shows Dolomite Alpine Ski Club, apparently now used as staff quarters

<p id="Tasmania"></p>

Tasmania

See the Victorian section for a more detailed description of ski clubs in general.

The development of ski clubs in Tasmania followed a similar trajectory to those in Victoria, although the smaller scale of the sport in Tasmania and occasionally marginal snow conditions meant there was a lot less politics. In recent decades the only major causes of friction have been on Ben Lomond relating to the lift companies and over the purchase of a commercial business, as well as the state government demolition of Sitzmark Lodge at Mt Mawson and not providing a replacement day shelter for several years.

In the 1920s two ski clubs were founded. Not surprisingly for Tasmania, one catered to the south and one to the north. The agreed informal demarcation line was the 42nd parallel. Members of these pioneering clubs did a great deal of ski exploration, working out the best places to ski and putting in basic infrastructure. The Hobart based Ski Club of Tasmania built Australia's first ski club hut at Twilight Tarn in 1927 while the Northern Tasmanian Alpine Club built ski huts at Ben Lomond in the 1930s and later began building the road that still services the mountain today. 

In 1932 they were joined by the mainly student based University Ski Club. The Hobart Walking Club were also enthusiastic skiers in the 1930s and while they are not technically a ski club, they were effectively one as they contributed to ski related work parties and raced against other ski clubs. These four clubs were joined by the Wellington Ski Club which soon abandoned the mountain on the edge of Hobart they took their name from, for the more reliable snow at Mt Mawson.

Later there were four major stimuli to the development of new clubs:

• The end of the Second World War led to the expansion of skiing at Mt Mawson and the creation of a new ski field at Mt Rufus. Soon afterwards the influx of central and northern European migrants from the late 1940s boosted membership of most clubs.

• In 1966 the construction of the road up precipitous Jacobs Ladder to the Ben Lomond ski slopes led to the creation of today's village with several new clubs being established.

• The construction of the 'Jeep Track' from Lake Dobson to the ski slopes in 1962 led to the formation of Mt Mawson and Oldina ski clubs who built high level lodges near the University Ski Club hut.

• Management and sewage issues at Ben Lomond village created a pent up demand for building sites. Things were mostly resolved by 1976 and a number of ski clubs based on the mountain were established in following years.

Before the Jacobs Ladder road was built up Ben Lomond, several individuals built ski huts high on Legges Tor. A few of the smaller lodges in the present village were also built by individuals rather than clubs. While some of the owners described themselves as 'clubs', except for NTAC's Summit Hut, it appears that all of them were effectively privately owned and not run by what most people would consider to be clubs.

Peak bodies

Before the Second World War there was little need for a state coordinating body for skiing. The NTAC had a monopoly of club skiing in the north (except for the Rover Scouts) and in the south, other clubs were happy for the Ski Club of Tasmania to handle the bother of lobbying for skiers and organising races. Tasmania was mostly without the rancour that characterised Victorian ski club politics in the mid 20th century.

However it was decreed by skiers from the mainland that a state body was required if Tasmanians wished to participate in the Australian National Ski Federation and the races it organised. So after a little north-south sparring, a Tasmanian Ski Council was duly established in 1932 with three delegates from south of the 42nd parallel and three from the north. The creation of the ski council appears to have been mainly to comply with demands from interstate and over its life it had little to do with internal Tasmanian affairs.

The pre war demarcation line of the 42nd parallel included areas favoured by northern skiers like Ben Lomond, the Western Tiers and Cradle Mountain, but fortuitously it left the new post war ski area of Mt Rufus in the south. As most Rufus skiers tended to identify more with Hobart than Launceston, this assisted skiers at the new ski field to interact with other skiers in the south of the state. Around 1950 Rufus Ski Club built a couple of huts on their mountain with a view to installing tows, but the end of work on nearby Hydro projects left them with too few local members to proceed. The club eventually merged with the Hobart based Wellington Ski Club. In the early 1970s a plan for a system of lifts on Mt Rufus was released and it again looked like Rufus might become the premier ski area in the state, but sadly nothing much happened.

Today most ski clubs work together to represent the two main ski fields and the websites for each peak body, the Southern Tasmanian Ski Association at Mt Mawson and the Ben Lomond Committee (formerly the Ben Lomond Ski Association) are also the main websites for each resort, although this may change with the ambitious plans of the new owners of the lifts at Ben Lonond.

List of ski clubs in Tasmania

Unless noted, all clubs still exist. The links are to the club's website or to their Facebook page if they don't maintain a website. However some clubs prefer to keep a modest profile and have neither. 

At this stage it is likely the list below is incomplete. Please send any corrections or extra information to australianmountains (at) gmail.com

1926. Ski Club of Tasmania. Built Australia's first ski club hut at Twilight Tarn in 1927, and Lake Dobson lodge at Mt Mawson in 1950?

1929. Northern Tasmanian Alpine Club. Ben Lomond. Website has a short history.

1929. Hobart Walking Club active skiers almost from the start. Ski lodge at Lake Dobson on Mt Mawson built 1947 or earlier, extended 1950.

1932. Tasmanian University Ski Club. Built lodge on Mt Mawson circa 1940 (described as small in 1947), replaced c.1970. Club folded early this century

1937. Wellington Ski Club now Wellington Ski & Outdoor Club. Largest ski club in Tas in late 40s. Lodge on Lake Dobson, extended for 1955 season

1945. Alpine Club of Southern Tasmania. Initially male only. Eagle Tarn lodge at Mt Mawson built 1946.

1946. Rufus Ski Club. Folded 1955 after Butlers Gorge hydro scheme completed as there were too few members to continue, merged with Wellington

1963< Rover Scouts. Took over Carr Villa on Ben Lomond from NTAC in 1963. They were probably active skiers much earlier.

196x. Mt Mawson Ski Club. Has a lodge on Mt Mawson.

1965< Oldina Ski Club. Lodge on Mt Mawson occupied for 1965 ski season, completed by 1966 season.

1968< Foresters Ski Club. Ben Lomond lodge occupied 1969, burnt 1990, rebuilt 1991.

1968. Talaria Ski Club. Ben Lomond lodge occupied 1969. Original members were from southern Tasmania. Website has short history.

1970. Kunama Ski Club. Ben Lomond lodge occupied 1971. Was an offshoot of NTAC.

1977. Bag End Ski Club. Ben Lomond lodge occupied 1978. Club was originally Devonport based.

1977. Bellendena Ski Club. Has lodge on Ben Lomond. Club founders were from the north coast.

1977. Birubi - St. George Ski Club. Has lodge on Ben Lomond. It was formed as a merger of two ski clubs in order to get a site in Ben Lomond village

1977. Borrowdale Ski Club. AKA The Hutt. Has lodge on Ben Lomond.

1980 circa? Toorbunna Ski Club. Has lodge on Ben Lomond

1991. Rovers Ski Club. Formed by former Rover Scouts. Ben Lomond lodge opened 1997

200X. Snowboard club in the south, possibly Mawson based? This may have been an informal group rather than a club?

2014. UTas Ski Club. Student ski club, skis at Ben Lomond.

[5 clubs competed in 1939 Tas Interclubs. Harvey later states that 5 clubs in 1948 championships inc Rufus and Wellington.]

Add description of Ski Clubs in Tasmania from Ski Horizon Dec 1949 pp. 10-11.

At this stage the ski clubs page is only intended to cover Victoria and Tasmania, however it may be extended it to include NSW in the future

New South Wales

Despite the distance from Sydney to the snowfields, NSW was the first state where skiing became organised. Whereas Victoria had to wait until after the first world War for the sport to become popular, in NSW ski clubs were established before the war. ...

After the Second World War inactive clubs were reactivated and skiing became increasingly popular, but the sport didn't experience the decade long post war boom that resulted in over 100 ski clubs Victoria by the mid 1950s. The reasons why NSW lagged behind at the time is partly to do with the longer distance from the state capital to the snow with slower roads of the time making getting there even more time consuming, but are more due to the shortage of accommodation at the NSW ski fields, specifically the inability of clubs to build their own lodges.

A major impetus to the formation of ski clubs was the opportunity to build club lodges. However unlike Victoria and Tasmania, which each had club lodges on their ski hills before the Second World War, NSW had to wait until the mid 1950s before it became possible for most clubs to build lodges. Despite this limitation and the much greater distance of the ski fields from the state capital, a surprising number of ski clubs were established in NSW before the mid 1950s. Once it became easier for clubs to build, the pattern followed that set by Victoria, albeit a decade later.

1870. Kiandra Pioneer Ski Club.

1909. Kosciusko Alpine Club.

1920. Ski Club of Australia.

Pre war. Kosciusko Alpine Club. Ski Club of Australia. Sydney Ski Club (Was this originally named the Millions Club?). Sydney University Ski Club. Sydney University Women's Ski Club. Public Service Ski Club {name changed to Summit Ski Club in ?1938?). Kosciusko Snow Revellers' Club. Albury Ski Club. Northern Ski Club. Cooma Ski Club. Adaminaby Ski Club. Country Ski Club. N.R.M.A. Ski Club.

Mid 1930s. SCA, KAC, Kiandra Pioneers Ski Club, Millions Ski Club, RACA Ski Club (Royal Automobile Club of Australia), Public Service Ski Club, Sydney University Ski Club. [In W. Cross p.160]

1938. Torch-Bearer Ski Club. (Originally for Shore old boys)

1953. Talbingo Ski Club

Pre 1954. Cabramurra Ski Club. International Ski Club.

1954 membership of Southern Districts Ski Federation of NSW. Berridale, Canberra Alpine, Cooma, Kiandra, Snowy River, S.M.A., Selmer Norwegian Sports Club, Talbingo, YMCA Canberra. (Are there any parallels with Victoria's NEDSA?)

A.C.T.

Pre war. Canberra Alpine Club.

South Australia

1952 - ? Adelaide University Ski Club (appears to have folded in 1953, but active again in 54),

1952 - present. South Australian Ski Club. Organises ski trips for members but does not own a lodge. Records from 1952 - 79 sold by a Brisbane bookshop in 2022.

Other c.1950s S.A. clubs, dates unknown. Mount Lofty Ski Club, Austrian Club, Swiss Club, German Club, University Ski Club, Teachers College Ski Club, Polish Ski Group.

To quote Wieland Von Behrens in the Schuss S.C. history,… By 1968 I had already conducted many interviews in Adelaide to understand the failures of earlier Adelaide efforts to create ski Lodges in Victoria, among them Mount Lofty Ski Club, Austrian Club, Swiss Club, German Club, University Ski Club, Teachers College Ski Club and Polish Ski Group. These proposals, involving a small nucleus of enthusiasts, frequently got as far as selecting a site after about year three. However, by the time real funds and labor effort were required, these founders were invariably exhausted - financially or inspirationally.

Western Australia

1955 or earlier. Mt Barker Ski Club (allegedly skied on the Porongorup Mountains near Albany, however this may have been a joke.) (SH Aug 55 p.20)

Sources checked to date

Ski Horizon. All issues.

Schuss. Some issues

Aust (& NZ) Ski Yearbook

SCV yearbooks

Books: 

<p id="Choosing a ski club"></p>

Choosing a ski club

Finding the right ski club is a complex task. Club lodges come in a huge number of different types, so it helps to have thought about what you want from a ski club and their lodge.
If you don't have friends who are already in a club lodge, finding the right club involves being clear about what you are looking for. The criteria to work out so you can develop a shortlist of potential clubs to join include:

• Which mountain or mountains do you want accommodation on, (or choose your favourite ski resort). Most ski clubs have a lodge on one mountain, but some have several lodges at different locations, one even has a beach house for their members to use in summer.

• What standard of accommodation do you want? There are club lodges ranging from backpacker hostel standard right through to 4 star level. (Not surprisingly, nicer clubs cost more.)

• What sort of 'personality' and atmosphere you are looking for? One where people look after themselves and are fairly self contained, or a lodge with good lounge areas that is more family focused and interactive, with people cooking for each other and babysitting each others kids. Many clubs are half way between those.

• Background. Most clubs just accept new members who seem nice and get along with existing members, but some have their roots in a particular trade or profession, ethnic group, school, company, town or suburb, etc. Sometimes people not from that background can feel slightly left out.

• Bookings. How long can you stay, how many guests can you take, etc.

• Member to bed ratio. Clubs with a high member to bed ratio usually have lower joining fees and annual membership fees but occasionally it can be hard to get a room when you want to stay there. Clubs with a lower member to bed ratio often cost more, but it's much easier to get a room when you want one.

• Do booking rules give you the flexibility or certainty that you want and are there restrictions that don't suit you such as no children or no weekend bookings untill the last minute.

• For more affordable clubs, would you ever be sharing a room with strangers?

• Are there club working bees? These keep costs down, but attending one may be inconvenient for you.

• Are there rostered chores that you are required to do during your stay?

• What are the annual fees even when you don't stay at the lodge?

• What are the rules about selling a membership? How much of the price is not recoverable? How long has it taken members to sell in the last few years?

View counter, since June 2015.