Founding Crackenback Ski Club
The Club was founded by a group of friends invited to attended a gathering arranged by Geoff and Tom Hughes at Tom’s apartment at “Manar” in Macleay Street, Potts Point. Subsequently 100 people contributed £50 each Membership to form the Club .
Locating the Site for the Lodge
Crackenback enjoyed the luxury of being founded by the founders of Thredbo! Accordingly, the Club’s lodge sits on what was believed at the time to be the premier location of a building at Thredbo.
In 1957 the Board of Kosciusko Thredbo met at Thredbo to pick a site for the proposed Hotel. Architect, Eric Nicholls also a Board member of KT, recommended the flat area where the fish pond is now. The majority supported Nicholls and Geoff Hughes who suggested the current location for the Hotel then requested his proposed site for Crackenback Ski Club. The Board said “we will walk over and have a look at it” afterwhich they also agreed it was a better site and agreed Crackenback Ski Club could have the site just behind.
Building the Lodge (1957)
The original lodge was built in 1957. Designed by architects Constance Crisp and Robert Maclurcan (Constance was the sister of original syndicate member Geoffrey Hughes) and built by a Cooma builder W. Beagley for a contract price of £5,000. This included our own septic tank. Along with an overdraft for furnishings, fittings, mattresses, blankets, crockery, cutlery, kitchen gear, fuel and tools the lodge was already providing accommodation for many involved with the initial construction of Thredbo.
Immediately upon completion of the Lodge, Geoff Hughes returned one day to Sydney and announced to Bev & Ian Curlewis “I’m going back down with Dawn and Damien to our absolute modern you beaut lodge with all mod cons”. The Curlewis’ had their recently born daughter Amanda and so with the Hughes and their new son, Damien, became the first members to pay for their accommodation at Crackenback!
The Alpine Way was built by the Snowy Mountains Authority to provide basic access to the works on the Murray River side of the mountains. Once winter weather arrived it became a boggy, four wheel drive track and anyone wishing to get to Thredbo often needed towing by their friends.
A community effort to get the VW through
The recently constructed road from the Alpine Way down to the lodge was also impassable that winter so they had to walk in to the lodge. Of the fortnight at the Lodge Ian remembers “working our butts off each day. Each day we skied from the hut down to the river, hop on the flying fox to get across the Thredbo River, with a pack on our back, and then we put our skins on the skis and get up to the tow to commence the day’s skiing.