WARNING

 This blog is no longer maintained.

It is still available to access historical information. Do not rely on it for any current information.

The club website aacfallscreek.com has the most up-to date information.

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.

At the lodge

You will have seen in the last newsletter that over the summer there have been many small but important improvements to refresh the lodge.

As part of moving the laundry to a more suitable space, some lockers have been relocated. If your locker is not where it was, the games room is where to find it.

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.

Epic Australia Pass

The Hotham lease issues have been finalised and Hotham is now part of Vail Resorts too. If you have a Hero Pass then you need to decide whether to convert to an Epic Australia Pass. It may be free, or a small fee or even a tiny refund depending on the date that you bought your Hero Pass.

If you convert, you get all the benefits of the Epic Australia Pass but you lose benefits of the Hero Pass. Epic Australia Pass lets you ski at Perisher as well as Falls and Hotham, and at some overseas resorts with some restrictions. Read the fine print and decide which is right for you. Some points to watch out for

• Hero Passes entitle you to 1 free day ticket and 1 free Learn to Ski ticket for friends. This does not apply under an Epic Pass
• Epic Australia Pass entitles you to 6 Bring a Mate discount tickets that only apply at Perisher. Discounts vary
• Seniors over 70 are treated differently by Vail Resorts. For this year, free passes are available under Merlin's conditions (Falls and Hotham only)

You can also choose to upgrade to an Epic Australia Plus pass which has less restrictions on overseas resorts. The Epic Pass is a US dollar pass that will apply to the Northern hemisphere 2019/20 season and our 2020 season. It has the most resorts and least restrictions.

I understand that the deadline to convert is 2 July.

For details see https://www.epicaustraliapass.com.au/passes/epic-australia-pass-faq-2019

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.

Season 2018 is off and running

Opening weekend was snowless but a week later lifts started to turn. By the end of June we had all lifts except Lakeside and International. The runs off Summit and Inter are open, but ungroomed. It's a fabulous start to the season with great skiing on the groomers and off-piste.

We've got a new Eagle Express chair, a big change in places to eat,and our beautifully renovated spa is open.

Members are using the new booking system to check out vacancies and grab the opportunity to enjoy this early snow. July and August are very heavily booked but there are still a few spare beds. If you haven't tried the booking system yet, the feedback is that it's much easier than the old system.

Have a great season!

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

.