Update on Oversnow and Village Access

It was great to have ski in/ski out for opening weekend but there was not enough snow to last. Between the rain and the snowplough, the village roads are being cleared.
Road conditions permitting, you will be able to drive to the lodge with a 30 minute pass for load and unload. Of course, if there is another big snowfall, things could change

Regardless of road conditions, the village roads will be closed as of 8am on Thur 27 June until mid September.

News from the lift co

Lift tickets

• Maximum walk-up day ticket price is $149. You can save by buying online, ahead of time.
• July Vic school holidays and Fri-Sun in July and August look to have the highest prices
• The lowest online ticket price is $97
• Midweek deal - ski Tue, Wed, Thur for the price of 2 days. Matching deal on resort entry. This will not be available in Vic July school holidays.

Ski School

• Kids ski school restructure
• Junior workshop 6-14
• Adults 15+
• Ride Tribe 13-17 but must be at least competent intermediate (not early or late season)
• Adult lessons return to 10am
• All day adult learn to ski deal (optional) 

Maintenance and improvements

• Gully has had a makeover and is now capable of 2.3m/sec. It can be slowed and sped up as required
• Eagle has had changes to improve reliability
• Bushfire control works have had a side benefit of summer grooming in the maze

Other news for season 2019

• The road and village shuttles and maybe some other vehicles, should have live tracking that you can follow in an app to better understand when to expect one
• Encouraging people to buy ATS (oversnow) tickets online. Will trial having an express line for people with online tickets
• ATS hours are nominally till 10 Sat-Thur, after midnight Fri but often they stay later. If you are going to be late, ring them when you know your ETA and they may be able to wait for you

and a plan for 2020

• Next summer – new car park below Bay 8 – expect 200 spaces

Queen's Birthday Weekend - What's happening?

This is the most snow for opening weekend since 2000.

The village will be in ski in/ski out mode from Friday morning, with no cars in the village. After the weekend they will assess whether there is enough snow to maintain ski in/ski out.

The lift co have said that they will run Gully, Eagle, Halleys, Towers, Drovers, Mousetrap (and maybe the little ski school carpet). They expect all runs off these lifts to be open, plus Broadway and the Ys.

The Falls Creek Alpine Association Mountain Muster function which we hosted last year will be on at Bogong Ski Club in the bowl and you are welcome to attend.

Have a great time if you heading up.

Pre season snow - what's happenning?

The early snow falls are fantastic, but make for some logistical challenges

This weekend Fri 31 May - Sun 2 June

Private traffic in the village will cease from midnight 31 May.

From 8am Saturday 1st June, carparking and village shuttle services will begin operation.  Shuttles will collect from QT, ATS (aka Oversnow) and Gully as well as all internal village bus stops.

If you require transport to the lodge, contact ATS to arrange.

The annual Ice Plunge is on Saurday at 9:30am

The visitor information centre will be open from 10am - 3pm Sat & Sun

Next week

If the snow forecast for Sun/Mon eventuates, the village will go to full oversnow operation. The aim would be ski in/ski out for QBW.

Eagle Express is go

The much heralded Eagle Express is operating.

It's a detachable quad, like Halley's Comet/Falls Express. It can whisk us up to the top in just a few minutes (2 minutes & 20 seconds at top speed but it may not run quite that fast). Initially the capacity (skiers per hour) will be the same as with the old lift, but there is an option for the lift co to provide more chairs in future.

A word of warning - the lift has an automatically locking safety bar. It doesn't release until you get to right to the unload.

Getting beginners to Cloud 9

The lift co have acquired a sherpa trailer. Together with it's snowmobile it can carry 9 passengers. It will be used to shuttle beginners from Eagle to Cloud 9. In busy times priority will go to ski school, but otherwise any beginners should be able to use it. I heard that there was a delay in getting it operational. Hopefully will be running soon.

Access

New regulations about chairlifts mean that the base station is positioned a little differently. Sadly this means we cannot walk or ski between the lift and Altitude Apartments (previously Cummings building)

Hopefully we will be able to ski through between the lift and Frying Pan

.

What else is new around Falls Creek in 2018

Trial of evening shuttles

There will be a trial of evening shuttles, from 6pm to 9pm from 2nd - 14th July. It will  use the same stops as the daytime village shuttles. This is intended to help people, especially families, get to restaurants around the village. Depending on how this goes, stage 2 of the trial will be another 2 weeks in early August. It would be great to see this as a regular feature, so please consider using it during the trial if it fits in with your plans.

Eateries

The lift company eateries are under new management, the people that run Husky and Astra. Frying Pan Inn and Cloud Nine have been refurbished, with plans for bigger redevelopment after the season. (Had a very nice lunch at Fryers.) Dicky Knees and Maggie's Snacks have been sublet to the Snonuts people. Maggie's has been renamed Blue Brumby and will add Asian fusion dishes to its offerings. Dicky Knees will add Mexican food and drinks.

Snonuts also have a stall at ATS (aka Oversnow)

Gateway Cafe has been taken over by the Easy Eats people who have the stall in the bowl. Menu is burgers, souvlakis, focaccias etc. They also have a stall above Slalom Plaza

Lilli Pilli is a new tea room (and spa) at Pretty Valley

Ski School Changes

Junior Workshop and teenage Ride Tribe are now only available as a full day program. Snowclub is still available as full day or half-day.

On the website there is no price for Junior Workshop or Ride Tribe that does not include a lift ticket. Maybe this just an omission, or....

Beginner transport from Eagle to Cloud 9

As mentioned in the Eagle article, there will be a 9 passenger snowmobile/trailer combination to shuttle beginners between Eagle and Cloud 9. Not sure when it will start

Lift Co Stores/Hires

The lift company shops have been re-branded and in some cases relocated

• Board Lounge is now in the Snowlands building (under Last Hoot)
• Apres Vous has been renamed ālp and movedto the front of QT where Board Lounge was
• Home Base is the main shop at QT
• Base 1 is the village bowl shop
• Base 2 is the shop at Silver Ski
• Peak is the shop at Cloud 9 (in a different location)
• Snowzone is ski valet and school group hire, now where Apres Vous was

New boot fitter

A new business will operate out of the old Gebi's building. Too soon to know much about it.

Personnel

Scott Sanderson is the new head of ski school. Lackie Keavers is the new media manager for the lift co

Mountain Muster 2018

The Falls Creek Alpine Association (FCAA) is a body that represents ski clubs and other small lease holders at Falls Creek. Every opening weekend they have a get together, known as the Mountain Muster. This year AAC Falls Creek hosted the function.

Over 100 people attended, with catering provided by FCAA. It was a great  chance to showcase our lodge to a broad cross section of Falls Creek regulars and we received many compliments.

Longest Lunch

It's on again on  this Friday 16 March. Barry Iddles from Elk will be catering for the Falls Creek Longest Lunch as part of the Melbourne Food & Wine Festival.
There are other special activities on offer over the weekend too.

More info

Eagle Chair Replacement

This project is well underway. The bowl is fenced off. Dismantling of the old lift started in late January. Gully car park is full on interesting new bits of chairlift. Helicopters will soon be busy putting the new towers in position.

Check out progress on the webcam

For those who came in late...
It will be a quad detachable in almost the same position as the old chair. The new chair will be much faster and will make it much easier to take beginners up to the excellent learning slope at Monkey Bar. The old lift was 37 years old and parts were very hard to get. A new alignment closer to Cloud 9 would have been lovely, but it was just too hard to get approval. Some parts of the old lift will be moved to Gully.

Dec 20 - Last Day for Resort Entry Season Early Bird

If you plan on coming to Falls Creek for more than a week next ski season then it's worth considering a season pass for resort entry.

If you buy before 5pm on 20 December you can get the early bird pricing of $325 ($260 for over 65s). Better still, you can opt to pay $95 now and the balance on 31 January.

more details at fallscreek.com,au

All lifts are now open

International poma opened at lunchtime Thursday 27 July, so we now have all lifts open.

**BIG NEWS** International Poma is set to open at 1pm today! Making plans for the weekend? ALL lifts are turning at Falls 👊🎿🏂 #fallscreek #itsmymountain #fallscreeksnow #international

A post shared by Falls Creek Resort (@fallscreek) on Jul 26, 2017 at 6:41pm PDT

Eagle replacement for 2018

The lift company still needs formal government approval, but preparations are well underway for replacing Eagle Chair next year. The old chair is 37 years old and becoming a bit of a maintenance nightmare. Instead we will have a fast quad detachable. Changing the alignment has proved too difficult because of environmental issues so the new chair will start and end very close to the current load & unload. Ski traffic through the bowl area will probably neeed to go behind rather than under the lift.

While we daydream of new lifts opening up more terrain, the new Eagle should still be a boon to AAC members. We will be able to easily take beginner guests up to the ideal beginner slope at Monkey Bar (Playground) and our own journey up Eagle will be faster and more comfortable. Hopefully the new lift will also see a return to a more lively vibe in the village bowl.

Village news

No major changes this year but a few minor things of interest:

• There should be 2 village shuttles operating most of the time, compared to 1 much of the time last year
• Slight increase in number of parking bays and staff/resident parking moved out of Lower Slalom to make more room for guests
• Shuttle stop shelters have been turned around so snow drop is not onto waiting passengers
• If you order food to be delivered from the supermarket, you should get an SMS to meet the delivery
• Winchcat grooming rides are being offered by the lift company (not cheap)
• FCRM are planning a 33% discount on resort entry for 3+ nights in September

2017 Resort Entry Season Pass deal closes 16 December

Resort Management has announced that there will be no Early Bird resort entry season pass in 2017. Instead they are offering a 2017 pass at the same price as 2016 if you pay your deposit by 16 December. That's $99 in December and $196 by 31 March.

They are saying that there will be no other discounted resort entry season passes (except for over 65s). There are no hints about what the 2017 price will be.

More info

Hero Pass deadline extended to Monday

Apparently they had some technical problems with the online store so the lift company has extended the deadline for Hero Passes to Monday 17 October. (I haven't seen a time, but probably safe to assume 5pm as it was for the original deadline).

Only $99 now and $650 in April ($49 + $380 for kids and seniors).

IGNITION - opening of the MTB season

November 19 - 20 is when the MTB trails reopen and Blue Dirt are putting on a special weekend.

The focus is on  the new Flowtown trail from Gully to Howmans which will open for the first time. Combined with the existing Frying Pan Spur, Thunderbolt and Wishing Well trails, that will make a 10km single track all the way from Summit to Howmans.

• Shuttles to take you up to the top of the trails
• Organised backcountry rides all the way down to Mt Beauty with a shuttle return
• Skills sessions
• Demo Specialized bikes
• If you've still got some energy there will be sunset rides and even a night ride on Flowtown
• Music, food, bands, beer hall
• $130 for both days (single day tickets too but they don't include everything)

More info at ignitionmtb.com.au

This should be a great weekend so why not book into the lodge with family or friends for only $40 per night per person. The $300 min booking fee will not apply for Ignition weekend

Blue Dirt Mountain Bike Shuttles

Mountain bike shuttles operate at Falls Creek roughly every second weekend from late November to late April. Shuttles take you up to the Summit, or to the Blue Dirt is the company who run them as well as the bike cafe and bike rental in Slalom St car park.

They also run shuttles at Kinglake, Mt Buller, Bright & Mt Beauty Last year they offered a season pass which covered all these locations.

Last year a day pass for the shuttles cost $50 and the season pass was $400, or $250 for an early bird pass. A nice deal if you intend doing a lot of shuttle assisted riding

I don't think they have announced the season pass yet this year, but stay tuned.

More info at bluedirt.com.au

Hero Passes on sale

It's on again - if you are a frequent Falls Creek skier or boarder then this deal is too good to miss.

$749 for a 2017 season pass valid at Falls & Hotham. Kids & Seniors only $429.

Pay a $99 deposit by 13 October and the deposit in April

More info at fallscreek.com.au/heropass

Spring at AAC Falls

There is still over a metre of snow, especially on the south side. Spring skiing is sunny days, fast morning groomers, slush bumps and creamy off-piste corn.

There are still vacancies at the lodge, so why not take advantage of the spring conditions and spring specials and sneak in another trip before the long summer.

Booking system