This Tasmanian Ski Field Serves Epic Alpine Landscapes With All the Modern Comforts

A ski field an hour from Launceston combines snow-fuelled fun with dramatic mountain scenery.

On my first day in Ben Lomond National Park, a mountain area of dolerite stacks, charming wildlife and a ski field that’s been operating since 1929, I’ve already whooshed down a short but fun ski run maybe 12 times, once on one buttock. I’ve spied Bennett’s wallabies nosing around the snow play area. A man in the village’s coffee queue has told me he saw resident wombat Trevor this morning – “plus a baby!” – and now I’m told spotty quolls scamper around the plateau, too. “Up here, for some reason, they’re happy to come out during the day,” says Stew Hosken, co-owner of Ben Lomond Alpine Resort. Sure, that might be normal breeding season behaviour for these nocturnal creatures but I reckon it’s actually because they love the place.

Why wouldn’t they? With six lifts (button and T-bar), this local gem is compact enough that I keep meeting the same friendly folk in the short lift lines – but there’s still plenty of space on the downhills, even though it’s school holidays. And at just 60 kilometres from Launceston Airport, you can click into skis within two hours of landing. Since buying the lift business in 2021, the new owners built the Base – a gear-rental facility and licensed cafe – at the bottom of the mountain. They’ve also effectively doubled the skiable season thanks to four new snow guns, plus snow grooming. And there’s more snow-making tech in the works. “A typical season here used to be 30 to 50 days,” says Launceston-born Hosken, who skied here as a kid. “Now we’re pushing 80-plus.” (They’re also investing in coach transport between Launceston, the Base and the ski village.)

When I arrive at the Base, Hosken is busily stacking the firepit ready for the afternoon wave of s’mores-toasting children. Co-owner Nigel Littlewood is helping with rentals (third partner Ben Mock is out of town) and tunes are pumping while the cafe cranks out coffees. After an 18-kilometre drive up the mountain, which requires a National Parks pass and snow chains in winter, I’m ready to launch off the Summit T-bar ascending Legges Tor, Tasmania’s second-highest peak (half the runs here are green to cater for beginners, 10 per cent are black for the expert skiers and boarders; the remainder are blue for intermediates). Capricious alpine winds have blown most of the loose snow off the pack but the view stops me in my crunchy traverse. With wisps of cloud scudding across the brilliant sky, I can barely see another soul on the wide plateau. It’s exhilarating.

My base camp is in Evandale, about an hour’s drive from the ski village – and it’s not exactly a camp. An 1840 homestead stylishly modernised into a luxury country stay with a wood-barrel hot tub, sauna and firepit in its elegant grounds, Leighton House (above) sleeps up to 12 in three suites and a bunk room. There’s a spacious kitchen and outdoor pizza oven but I divert into Launceston’s Alps & Amici food store and cafe to pick up chef-made fare such as Nepalese chicken, lemon pudding and a splendid Bream Creek pinot noir, pretending I’ve earned all this. Freeze-dried meals are on offer for actual campers, trekkers and others heading to the polar opposite of my squishy, toasty bed with gigantic heated-floor ensuite. As steam curls from the hot tub and horses graze in the dimming light, that pinot, like the skiing, goes down an absolute treat.

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