Wow. Would love to see a comparison shot from the same place today. I didnt realise the original chair came out of the terminal building (makes sense). Did they build that bank where you walk down the stairs when they built the Koszi chair? It seems so flat there.
I actually really liked the new beer garden setup, great for an apre ski drink on a warm spring afternoon, better than the pub deck or River Inn now.
Its crazy to think how void of trees the meadows was on the ST, much better now with the various chutes due to replanting.
For sure the lack of trees is what struck me with that shot. Looks far better now, but it made me wonder, were the trees up there initially cleared then later replanted or was it bare anyway given it's getting to around the treeline (surely it's below the treeline though?)
A local went gung-ho and ripped the shit out of meadows. Since the old Crackenback chair was replaced with the Kosci chair, they have done extensive re-planting.
Thredbo was heavily wooded in 1957 when the ski area was founded. From what I've been led to believe Meadows (the central slopes above the cat shed) was cleared to make Thredbo appear more like a European ski area. Though the contractor or whoever got a little heavy handed and cleared too much. Snow retention suffered as it was too exposed to sun and wind. Trees are being replanted ever since. The trees that separates the trails in the Meadows area were probably the last massive effort to replace those about 20 years ago. If you look around below the cat shed you can still see they are replanting. Imo they should further replant between the trails because the snow has been better below Kareela now than ever. Mostly because of improved snowmaking but also the shade and wind breaks created by the trees separating the trails.
I met one of the guys that cut the original Funnelweb, in the late sixties. Basically over summer one year a couple of them started to clear a few paths down the hill there. No one said anything, so the following summer they hooked in with a chainsaw. Lendlease then decided to make it a formal run. They wanted to call it Spiderweb, as the original was just a few narrow lines. Lendlease thought it sounded too wishywashy, so..... I remember the first time I skied it, it was much narrower, and had a split in the steep bit.
Some Historic Australian Alpine footage from YouTube, I've posted these links here before but if you haven't seen them yet I hope you enjoy them.
