Went to Selwyn today with the kids to have a play. According to an incomprehensible Scottish lifty (Hi! if you're reading), it arrived in Sydney yesterday, and will be on its way down as soon as it clears customs. Other than that, they'd done well to farm a single strip of snow under the New Chum chair, probably about 10-20cm deep and 20ish metres wide. All good fun. Plenty of families there having a play on the patches of snow scattered around the place, but pretty much no one but us and occasional staff members on the actual run. They're suffering from some strong inversions at the moment. Haven't been able to make snow for ages, yet the creek that flows into Three Mile Dam was frozen over at 4pm solid enough to throw rocks on. Guess we know where all the cold air is draining away to.
When I was there a few weekends ago, the new Snow maker was still doing testing and trials. Working but not up to full capacity. The plan will be to have it running The plan will be to have it running 24 hours today 24 hrs a day. Will have a chat to a few more folk on sun. Hopefully going up then.
Did Selwyn end up getting their Ice machine last season? How come they haven't fired it up yet if they did? Baw Baw has theirs up and running.
Anyone know what elevation the Snowy mountains highway from Tumut over to Cooma gets to? Some low level snow forecast for Friday morning.
Thanks, I note live traffic often says chains required for heavy vehicles. How is it for 4wd vehicles after snow? Do they often enforce chains?
Speaking of strong inversions, there were some crackers over the weekend and Sunday AM in particular following the obs. So the boy will be 3 early next year and my partner is also showing some interest in the snow. Selwyn would have to be first choice for some intro lessons surely? I've never been. And always happy to save a $ or two
No . And your mud or AT tyres are not same as snow tyres so beware on the white stuff , more so on the in between stuff.
I will say that after four seasons at Selwyn, I regularly drove on snowy roads. I have a 4wd and exempt from chains. 2wd def needs chains quite often on low snow level days.
It's good fun when there's complete cover and all lifts are spinning. New Chum Bowl is great for beginners, we went there with our kids for their first time on snow. These days they beat me down the hills at Perisher (which isn't that hard to do).
Thanks. First time coming over from Tumut across so appreciate the info. Assume the plough will be out Friday morning. Drive safe all!
I travel it quite regularly and seem to always time it for snow. Never had a problem in AWD just slower drive than when it’s clear. I’m either headed across this evening or tomorrow, so snowy again!
BTW just drove across, road all clear and passed a couple of ploughs perhaps getting ready for tomorrow. Lots of snow players parked on the side of the road.
Great day taking the kids for their first day on the snow. Lots of flakes falling all day. A few cars didn't cope too well in this morning's snow which was consistently falling from about 1000 metres. Whilst kids were in ski school had lots of fun between the trees.
Okay sorry for the delay. But we made it up to Selwyn on Sunday - quite a bit of snow on the side of the road. Been a long time since i have seen that much snow on the side of the drive over there. Its was very quiet perfect for taking the bump for a slide! rarely a wait for a lift (the poma was the worst) and rode the triple with an extra person twice. but went straight on. We also went for a drive by Cabra. Lots of snow there - such a shame! Huge sign when driving into town telling us skiing and tobogganing is banned. (should have taken the snowboard!) Bottom photo is the top of the beginners run. Here i am 26 weeks
I skied across 3 mile dam once back in one of those huge seasons early in the 1990s because I am the WORLD'S STUPIDEST PERSON. To this day I don't know WTF I was thinking. Not much is probably the answer. Anyway it happened. Nice pics @malas1 thx for sharing
Love love love your pics too @Ozgirl. Not enough people sharing pics from that end of the world. Great to see the Powerline poma pic. Always thought they shoulda made the triple chair longer and had the station for uploading both ways, much like Keoghs/Orchard works at Hotham. That would allow you to ski Kangaroo Ridge and Long Arm even in those sadly all-too-frequent times when Powerline can't run because its sun-facing slope has melted. Also love the Cabra pic. I went walkies around the Cabra ski runs last summer on the way back from a 3 day hike out to Jagungal. The run to the left of your pic is the main run and it looked to have about 80-100 vertical m of dark blueish pretty steep fun. Any signs it had been skied this year by locals? They're really weird about it in Cabra, I've found. No one will tell you when it's open or how you can apply for a guest pass - probably because you can't. Anyway great pics again.
Ramshead - my parents were member of the ski club right up until the closed it. (over 40 years) Rumour has it they open it for Snowy hydro staff only on a Wednesday night and they bring in lifties from selwyn to run it. It was really bizzare... apparently that pristine snow magically had ski tracks in by the time we left... never saw anyone else there. There is two runs off to the left - one in the tress which was the 'black' run. But you are right the main run is steeper than anything you can ski at Selwyn! the black one is steeper again! This is me back in the day on the same run pictured with my dad. Dad is adamant that this pic is from august, early 80's.
We are coming to the snow next week Monday to Thursday. Is it worth taking the kids to Selwyn? Doesn’t look like much snow on the snow cams. This will be our first time skiing. We are having lessons at thredbo on day 1
It depends how quickly you pick up skiing really, and whether there are better options around in terms of lift + lesson passes. You could also consider Charlotte Pass. Same owners as Selwyn, but you would drive to Perisher and get oversnow transport to the skifields (and back). In either case, make sure you don't pay full price for lift passes: Selwyn lift passes on Groupon Charlotte Pass on Groupon
Thanks for the advice. Never knew about Charlotte pass. Will be cheaper than perisher. Is it ok for beginners?
Cheaper, quieter, better for learning and the kids - Charlotte's pass isn't bad if you get one of the Groupon deals. Now I will slap myself on the hand for venturing too far off topic.
So here is a "before" pic of Selwyn (top of Township) from the Tuesday of the first week of the 2019 school holidays. Despite the limited coverage, a good time has been had by myself and kids, and pretty much everyone else here actually, at least it seems that way. "Before" in this context is on Tuesday, prior to what looks like a week of snow, totalling probably 50-60cm, on the cards starting Thursday. Lift lines all ok despite only Township and New Chum chairs spinning. A few small snowflakes falling today but not settling in any way. Happy days. Will post a post-storm photo in about a weeks time. PS many thanks to the Selwyn Mtn Ops crew who managed to put together some snow for the school holidays after it all melted earlier in June. Lots of kids having a great time thanks to your work. .
Will happen. On saturday Selwyn will do better than Thredbo and Perisher IMO due to SW direction. ONly needs 30cm to open everything.
Is it usually so dry at this time of year? Last year we went in the July school holidays and everything was open, I thought that was the norm. Is this a bad year or was last year really good?
Last year Spencer's Creek snow depth peak was a little up on "recent years" average. But Spencer's CK is near Perisher and the peak is usually late Aug. Snowy Hydro has snow depth records from Three Mile Dam near Selwyn online and if you look you'll see quite patchy natural snow depths in July. As mentioned above, Selwyn only needs about 40cm of snow to open the whole joint due to grassy runs. That's just one or two good fronts passing. Last year they got that on about June 20th and it stayed until mid-Sept. This year, they got about 30cm before the June LWE but lost it all to rain from the Monday of the LWE onwards, with only little top up two Sundays ago. So it's a bit iffy early in July as a rule. Global warming probably isn't helping, but this year has been very dry across much of NSW, so clearly there has been a tendency to low precip levels at the moment. But if you read other posts here lots of chatter about winter usually arriving properly for week 2 of the school holidays at any of the other resorts. So in short, last year better than average all round. This year a real up and down start. But a week of snow inbound starting tomorrow. After that, you need to read the threads in the Weather Forum and see what the likes of Jellybeans etc have to say about longer term outlooks.
Thursday 11 July Snowy blowy day at Selwyn. Cover improving thanks to persistent snowfalls. Home Run now skiable as well as New Chum Bowl and Township. Township quite nice by the afternoon with 100 percent cover. Lift lines and road access all ok.
