Once considered the world's longest chairlift, the Alpine Way lift started at the chalet, rose to Main Range View station on the Stilwell Range, and then across Wright’s Creek Valley and up to the Top Station (Ramshead Restaurant) on the Crackenback Range. It was abandoned in 1965 after just two years, having been plagued by malfunctions.
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00:00It's winter, which can mean only one thing for adventurous snow bunnies.
00:06But how to get to the top of your favourite ski run?
00:09One thing is for sure, it won't be on the 6km long Alpine Way to Charlotte Pass chairlift
00:17that will long be remembered as one of the most ill-conceived and impractical projects
00:22in snowy mountains history.
00:25Running over one of the windiest and wildest mountain tops in the country, and with the
00:29chairs often buried in the snow or on wind hold for weeks at a time, not surprisingly
00:35it was abandoned in 1965 after just two years of operation.
00:42I recently caught up with Owen Davis, one of the staff members who lived and worked
00:46at the chairlift's top station, also home to a remote restaurant, and began by asking
00:52him how he kept warm when power outages often left him and his workmates stranded.
00:59Sometimes there for weeks at a time.
01:02No TV, no radio, I don't recall it.
01:06We had lots of great opera because we had an Austrian chef who was wrapped in opera.
01:11And I learnt a lot about opera as a result of that.
01:15And often the power cable which came over from the Alpine Way and went through to the
01:20chalet and also was the power source for the chairlift would break.
01:24So we'd be without power for anything up to two or three weeks at a time sometimes.
01:31That was also a contributing factor as to how practical it was to operate the chairlift.
01:36Sixty-four I think still is a record year for Australia since they've been keeping records.
01:42And the chairlift was actually buried, in sections of the chairlift was actually buried
01:46under snow in sixty-four.
01:48It snowed for almost a month.
01:50We ran out of firewood and in order to stay warm had to cut the legs off the chairs in
01:56the restaurant.
01:57In fact it made it very convenient when you wanted to sit around the fire you could just
02:00put your feet, sit down in the chair and put your feet up on the hood of the fire.
02:05You know you've got to remember as a young person there was no end to it.
02:09It was a boy's own adventure being able to work on that.
02:14And having come off the snowy scheme and then go into an environment like that was fabulous.
02:18No you'd spend anything up to three months at a time up there before you went out to
02:22the chalet or went down to the Alpine Way or something.
02:24You mightn't go down to the chalet or the Alpine Way for a whole season, you stayed
02:28in place for a whole season.