Starting Thredbo

The Thredbo Valley’s potential for skiing had been recognised by people such as Elaine Mitchell and Venn Wesche in 1946. Mitchell first and then Wesche wrote about the potential in correspondence during that year.

Tony Sponar and Sasha Nekvapil were the Czechoslovakian male and female Alpine Ski champions and competed in the 1948 Winter Olympics at St Moritz. They both came to Australia to be instructors at the Chalet at Charlotte’s Pass.

Tony Sponar later became a hydrographer for the Snowy Mountains Authority. In 1955 the development of the Thredbo Valley became possible when the Authority constructed the Alpine Way.

In May 1955, the Kosciusko Chairlift and Thredbo Hotel Syndicate was formed by Charles Anton, Eric Nicholls, George Alfred Lloyd and Geoffrey EF Hughes.  They were granted a option for a 99 year lease after Andrew Thyne Reid joined in September 1955. The Syndicate formed what is now known as Kosciusko Thredbo with Anton, Nicholls, Lloyd, Hughes and Reid the original directors.

During the winter of 1955 a study of weather and snowfall characteristics of the area was made and in the summer of 1955-56 it was decided that the Friday Flat / Crackenback peak area was best suited for development.

By November 1956 Sponar and Anton had engaged a local from Jindabyne, Danny Coleman, to cut a path through the trees for access to the mountain. It was only a little over a metre wide and still stewn with trees. As Ian Curlewis remembers it “at least there was a cut through the trees up to the mountain”. Curlewis remembers this area of the mountain has being ‘very dense covering of trees and bush, almost impenetrable stuff”.

It happened that this was the last weekend on November in 1956; previously Charles Anton had been involved with the three Main Range huts, Kunama, the Northcote Tow Hut and Albina.

In July 1956 an avalanche near Mt Kosciuszko destroyed the Kunama hut and killed Roslyn Wesche (the only daughter of Venn Wesche), and a few weeks later a fire destroyed the Northcote ski tow on the Main Range.

So Charles Anton redirected his energy from the Main Range huts to Thredbo and he arranged for a keen group of skiers to visit Thredbo to select a site for potential lodges.

As Ian Curlewis recalls; “We stayed at the Creel and it was a group of lawyers mainly as I think about it, there was Alec Shand and myself both barristers, Robert and John Minter both solicitors and Geoffrey Hughes, another lawyer. We were joined down there by Tony Sponar, we came in, as I recall, in two four wheel drives vehicles, the road was shocking, little more than a bridle track really. But we got up here from the Creel and we had our skis with us, we got out of the vehicle somewhere about where the bridge is across the river at the moment and walked around and really just walked down to Friday Flat and a bit further up the valley with Charley Anton, Geoffrey Hughes and Tony Sponar, really looking at the sites for the first huts to be built.

“ Really they then selected the site for the first hut, which was Crackenback Ski Club, and they also selected the site for the start of a company operation down here. It was, as I recall, a sort of Nissan hut that was pretty basic in its construction but that was really the start of company involvement in Thredbo.

“On that weekend, the whole lot of us went up to Dead Horse Gap, got out of the vehicle, leaving one driver to take the vehicle back down. We clambered up through very thick timber, it was very difficult climbing because we had ski boots on. They were nothing like ski boots you see now, they were leather boots and much more flexible than ski boots one knows today.

“Anyhow we climbed right up onto the top and there was snow on the ridges and we skied along past Saturday Peak which was on our right and came down to the very top of Thredbo here and skied down to about the tree line where we found the slit that Danny Coleman had cut in the trees. So we had to take our skis off and then clamber down over strewn logs and it was very difficult process to actually getting off the mountain once we’d got into the cut through the trees.

In the 1956-57 summer period Thredbo’s first area manager, Tony Sponar, with a budget, of £4000 commissioned the building of a road from the Alpine Way to the site of Crackenback Ski Club and the first Company accommodation either side of the current steps behind the present Thredbo Alpine Hotel. This initial access road which still forms the steep descent into the Village was designed by Mike MacBride, then a young student engineer with the Snowy Mountains Authority.  MacBride joined Crackenback Ski Club several years later and remains active on the Club’s board today.

Geoff Hughes, about the same time, bought the heavy cast iron drive wheels, poles and pulleys that survived the explosion at Kunama Hut from the Ski Tourers Association at a cost of £1,875 and began designing of the building of Thredbo’s first ski tow.

A Crackenback Ski Club working party stayed at the Snowy Mountains Authority’s Friday Flat camp at Easter 1957 and did the work necessary to move the engine and drive unit which Geoff Hughes had procured across the Thredbo River and into position. The poles and pulleys were then erected for a half-mile long rope tow that finished just below the level of the future Kareela Hut, at about 5,800 ft.

The engine and drive shafts were mounted on a sled which pulled itself up to a place on the survey line for the Chairlift at about 5,000 ft above sea level.

The rope tow worked well for the winter of 1957 with its operator Michael Darton (an ex-RN Englishman) also the first caretaker at Crackenback Ski Club’s Lodge. In the following summer, 1957-58, the construction of the first Chairlift commenced and was ready for the 1958 winter season. By this time many new privately owned accommodation and Club Lodges had been built.

Many Crackenback members also played important roles in the establishment of the ski trails on the mountain. The steepest little run was cleared by a weekend working party of some very enthusiastic young single club members. The clearing was named Lovers Leap by those who know why!!

Formation of Kosciuszko Thredbo Ltd

In May 1957 the original syndicate was renamed and reorganised into Kosciusko Thredbo Limited. Andrew Thyne Reid was the Chairman. It soon became apparent that to realise the ambitions of the founders for a year round resort considerable more money was required. The parties interested at the time were Lend Lease and Coach House Motor Inns Ltd, a company controlled by the Sydney family McGraths.

In 1961, Lend Lease acquired the lease and until 1987 the company developed Thredbo into the premier winter resort in Australia. Club member, Mike Mathews was also General Manager of Lend Lease Leisure who oversaw the management during much of this period. In January 1987, Amalgamated Holdings Limited, known to most as the Greater Union organisation, purchased the lease and contributed significantly to developing Thredbo with an advanced snowmaking system and state of the art detachable quad chair.