Windy conditions, eager early-season crowds and limited areas open for skiing and snowboarding generated long lift queues at the NSW snow resorts over the weekend, with many people taking to social media to express their frustrations.
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However, low overnight temperatures and good snow-making conditions are forecast this week ahead of the school holidays and one of the peak visitation periods for the resorts.
Pictures posted across social media over the weekend showed long lift queues, with hundreds gathered at Perisher's Front Valley and there were posted comments lamenting wait times of more than half an hour at Perisher's Leichhardt chair.
But as one social commentator noted: "It will only get better from here."
A blizzard brought overnight snow across all the NSW resorts on Sunday and Monday, with Perisher hoping to open a season-high 33 of its 47 lifts - wind permitting - on Monday. More than 10cm of snow forced graders in to clear the Perisher carpark ready for the arrival of vehicles on Monday.
Perisher operations manager Michael Fearnside said that the high winds had suspended some lift operations.
"In certain weather conditions it just isn't safe to operate every lift," he said.
"Through the weekend we saw wind speeds of around 100km per hour at the top of the mountain which limited the number of lifts we could safely open.
"Perisher has the advantage of a network of surface lifts which can operate in higher winds, and we had all the surface lifts that could safely operate spinning, in all four areas of the resort."
Thredbo had 15cms of fresh snow on Sunday night, and winds of 45kmh. Seven lifts were open on Monday, according to the resort online dashboard.
Strong winds accompanied the passage of the cold front early on Monday but this problem was expected to ease during the week as the region falls under more stable high pressure weather patterns.
Windy conditions are a regular issue for the Snowy Mountains resorts particularly during the early season, as this puts the lifts on wind hold due to safety requirements and condenses the crowds into those areas serviced by the ground-hugging T-bars and the Village 8 chair on Perisher's Front Valley, which is able to operate while most other chairs are on hold.
All four of the Perisher resorts - including Guthega, Smiggins and Blue Cow - opened on Friday but are not yet interlinked.
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One of the country's most reliable snow forecasters, Peter "The Frog" Taylor, described it as "a bit of a wild weekend" and the area was experiencing "a great June cover".
He expected the bulk of the snow for the next week to fall between Monday morning and Wednesday, when conditions are expected to stabilise, with sub-zero overnight temperatures creating more snowmaking potential.
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