Selwyn Snow Resort, formerly known as Selwyn Snowfields, is a

ski resort A ski resort is a resort developed for skiing, snowboarding, and other winter sports. In Europe, most ski resorts are towns or villages in or adjacent to a ski area–a mountainous area with pistes (ski trails) and a ski lift system. In North Am ...

located in the most northern part of the

Snowy Mountains The Snowy Mountains, known informally as "The Snowies", is an IBRA subregion in southern New South Wales, Australia, and is the tallest mountain range in mainland Australia, being part of the continent's Great Dividing Range, a cordillera syste ...

New South Wales New South Wales (commonly abbreviated as NSW) is a States and territories of Australia, state on the Eastern states of Australia, east coast of :Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria (state), Victoria to the south, and South ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

, in the

Snowy Monaro Regional Council The Snowy Monaro Regional Council is a local government area located in the Snowy Mountains and Monaro regions of New South Wales, Australia. The council was formed on 12 May 2016 through a forced merger of the Bombala, Cooma-Monaro and Snow ...

and

Kosciuszko National Park The Kosciuszko National Park ( ) is a national park and contains mainland Australia's highest peak, Mount Kosciuszko, for which it is named, and Cabramurra, New South Wales, Cabramurra, the highest town in Australia. Its borders contain a mix o ...

. Selwyn Snow Resort is located near the town of

Adaminaby Adaminaby is a small town near the Snowy Mountains north-west of Cooma, New South Wales, Cooma, New South Wales, Australia, in the Snowy Monaro Regional Council. The historic town, of 301 people at the , is a trout fishing centre and winter spo ...

and is close to

Cabramurra Cabramurra is a town situated at on the western side of the Snowy Mountains (or South West Slopes), along the Great Dividing Range in the state of New South Wales. It is lower than Dinner Plain in Victoria, and lower than Charlotte Pass Vi ...

, which is the highest town in Australia. Selwyn is owned by Blyton Group, which also owns Charlotte Pass Snow Resort. It reopened on the 10th of June 2023. Selwyn Snow Resort announced in November 2024, the appointment of their new General Manager, Abigail Spackman, who grew up skiing at Selwyn Snow Resort.

History

Selwyn Snow Resort traces its origins to the skifields at nearby

Kiandra Kiandra is an abandoned gold mining town and the birthplace of Australian skiing. The town is situated in the Snowy Mountains of New South Wales, Australia, in the Snowy Monaro Regional Council inside the Kosciuszko National Park. Its name i ...

, where skiing began in Australia around 1861. The more reliable snow cover at Selwyn saw the establishment of a portable

rope tow A surface lift is a type of cable transport for mountain sports in which skiers, snowboarders, or mountain bikers remain on the ground as they are pulled uphill. While they were once prevalent, they have been overtaken in popularity by higher ...

on what is now the Township Run in 1966. The remaining ski facilities at Kiandra were finally transferred to Selwyn in 1978 (including Australia's first T-Bar, which had been installed at Kiandra in 1957). In 2009 a triple chairlift finally replaced the duplex T-Bars on the Township Run at Selwyn Snow Resort. During the 2019-2020 bushfire season the Snowfields building and equipment was heavily impacted and damaged.

Resort Statistics

Selwyn Snow Resort is the most northerly of Australia's ski resorts with a base

elevation The elevation of a geographic location (geography), ''location'' is its height above or below a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational equipotenti ...

of and a top elevation of AHD. The longest run at Selwyn Snow Resort is the ''Long Arm Run''. For the winter of 2023, Selwyn Snow Resort comprised , with 8 lifts including two chair lifts, two t-bars, two carpets, a platter and a Poma. The resort also advertises of marked cross country trails. Selwyn is well suited to families and first timers, with 88% of terrain catering to beginners and intermediates, however the steeper gradient of the ''Racecourse Run'' provides some more challenging terrain for advanced skiers and boarders. In 2007 some terrain park features were added to the blue run known as ''Township''. A relatively low altitude means that the resort can have trouble maintaining a good natural

snow Snow consists of individual ice crystals that grow while suspended in the atmosphere—usually within clouds—and then fall, accumulating on the ground where they undergo further changes. It consists of frozen crystalline water througho ...

cover during the very early and the latest stages of the ski season (June and September). The resort has developed extensive

snowmaking Snowmaking is the production of snow by forcing water and pressurized air through a "snow gun", also known as a "snow cannon". Snowmaking is mainly used at ski resorts to supplement natural snow. This allows ski resorts to improve the reliabilit ...

facilities to combat this problem. This includes state of the art Lenko System, and the newer TT10 system from TechnoAlpin which can produce snow a two degrees warmer than the previous system, with a virtually inexhaustible supply of water from nearby Three Mile Dam that services the resort. are today covered by snow-making and Selwyn Snow Resort is often the first New South Wales ski resort to advertise "100% access" to the mountain. Gentle, grassy terrain makes it easier for Selwyn Snow Resort to open its runs on a thinner snow cover than is the case at the higher, rockier resorts further south.

Nearest accommodation

There is no public accommodation available at Selwyn Snow Resort. Winter access to the resort is via the

Snowy Mountains Highway Snowy Mountains Highway is a state highway located in New South Wales, Australia. Its two sections connect the New South Wales South Coast to the Monaro region, and the Monaro to the South Western Slopes via the Snowy Mountains. The higher ...

, from Talbingo in the west or Adaminaby in the east. No guest accommodation is provided at nearby

as it is closed to the public due to the 2019-2020 bushfires. The closest major tourist accommodation is at the holiday village of Providence Portal on the upper reaches of

Lake Eucumbene Eucumbene Dam is a major gated embankment dam, earthfill embankment dam with an Spillway#Types, overflow ski-jump and bucket spillway with two vertical lift gates across the Eucumbene River in the Snowy Mountains of New South Wales, Australia. The ...

between

and

. Many visitors also choose to stay at

, Talbingo and

Cooma Cooma is a town in the south of New South Wales, Australia. It is located south of the national capital, Canberra, via the Monaro Highway. It is also on the Snowy Mountains Highway, connecting Bega, New South Wales, Bega with the Riverina. ...

. Wolgal Hut at Kiandra was re-opened in 2012 for public accommodation as part of the rejuvenation of Kiandra by

NSW National Parks & Wildlife Service The National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) is a directorate of the New South Wales Department of Planning and Environment and responsible for managing more than 890 national parks and reserves, covering over 7.5 million hectares of land ac ...

. The ski and fishing hut was built in the 1960s and is located close to the foot of the original Kiandra ski slopes. It is one of the four remaining historic buildings of the abandoned gold rush town which have been the subject of restoration work.

2020 Bushfires

In January 2020 bushfires in the

region In geography, regions, otherwise referred to as areas, zones, lands or territories, are portions of the Earth's surface that are broadly divided by physical characteristics (physical geography), human impact characteristics (human geography), and ...

burnt through the resort, with pictures provided by the

showing widespread destruction. All of the resort's buildings were reportedly destroyed or severely damaged. However, as the resort had been previously evacuated no loss of life was reported.

References

External links