Can you ski when the snow is minimal and the lifts are closed?

Here in the Southern Hemisphere it's winter. But for some reason (like, a little thing called climate change perhaps) even though it's the King's Birthday Long Weekend--when Australian ski resorts usually open--there's shit all snow around. ❄️

Back in late May, we had a big dump and it was looking awesome. And then nothing. 🤷‍♀️

The Perisher website says (something like):

"Amount of natural snow fallen in the last 7 days: 0 cm." 🤦

Nonetheless, their snow guns (machines that produce artificial snow as long as it's cold enough) have been hard at work every night. 💪

Today was the first day of what we're hoping could be five days of skiing and the only lift that was open of their 48 total lifts across four resorts was one 50 metre ski conveyor (aka "magic carpet") in the baby, beginner ski area called "Front Valley". 🎿

We tried it once but it wasn't worth the hassle of lining up. 😝

What worked better was carrying our skis and stocks (poles) and hiking up the hill. Once at the top, we got our reward: we got to ski down again. 🙌

We managed this twice, with a water and coffee break in between. By then it was lunchtime and well and truly time to get out of those effing ski boots! 🤣

It was as ridiculous as it sounds but it was also strangely satisfying. Hiking up a hill we'd usually be carried up, and actually carrying all our gear ourselves was a workout in and of itself. And it meant we had really (really) "earned" the right to ski down the 100 metre hill. 😁

So, unless they manage to make enough snow overnight to open the 8 seated chair lift that runs up the middle of Front Valley that's designed to conveniently deliver us to the top with minimal effort... then we'll probably repeat this strange but satisfying process again tomorrow morning. 😄

Pray for enough snow we can ski even more tomorrow without having to navigate mini creeks, icy patches and skiers who slow plough even worse than I do? That would be nice. Though, I have to admit this is a rather minor first world problem we have going on here. Haha. Still some more snow would be grand! 😊

{All photos taken by me or the handsome man in my photo, aka @new.things. Walking and skiing data were screenshots of my Garmin Connect App. Thanks Garmin for catching this silliness. 😅 }