Cresta Valley Ski Resort

The abandoned but still largely intact Cresta Valley ski resort is a beautiful and tragic testimony to Australia’s changing climate. Shut down in 2003 after a bushfire destroyed much of its infrastructure, the chairlifts and Pomas at Cresta Valley still stand with their chairs neatly stacked beside them.

Located within 100 meters of the Horn road, Cresta Valley is a trailhead for bushwalkers in the summer and a destination for tobogganers, cross country skiers, and snow-shoers in the winter.

The Cresta Valley lifts remain in surprisingly good condition despite nearly 20 years of disuse. The load-bearing wires still have tension and the operation manuals lay open in the control rooms as if waiting for the next season.

Increasingly unreliable snowfall due to climate change means the resort at Cresta Valley is unlikely to ever open again.