It was gold miners at Kiandra in 1861 who first experienced the joy (and terror!) of sliding down snowy slopes on planks of timber. Scandinavians with some ski experience were in the gold-digging population.

They soon started making skis (called snow-shoes then) from the native Alpine ash timber. Its straight grain meant it could be worked well with hand tools. Boot bindings were simple strips of leather. A length of snowgum sufficed as a single brake-pole; actual ski-stocks were unheard of.

Soon a ski club and annual races came into being. By the end of the century Sydney photographer Charles Kerry was immortalising the events with his glass-plate camera. The photos today are a wonderful archive of winter sports at Kiandra and fashions of the time.

In 1897 Kerry organised the first winter ascent of Mt Kosciuszko. Clement Wragge's summit weather station followed soon after and public interest in Kosciuszko grew.

NSW premier Joseph Carruthers saw the winter tourism potential and his government funded the new Hotel Kosciusko, completed in 1909 on Diggers Creek, three years after the new summit road replaced the old bullock dray track. The grand hotel was a masterly example of Federation-era architecture.

Meanwhile in Victoria there was skiing at Mt Hotham, and the government built Mt Buffalo Chalet in 1910 which was a year-round resort and which in 1937 saw Australia's first ski lift constructed on the Cresta Run.

It was a long ski from the Hotel Kosciusko to the actual summit so the NSW Government built The Chalet at Charlotte Pass in 1930. Managed by the redoubtable George Day (whose family ran the accommodation at Yarrangobilly Caves), The Chalet was now the closest ski chalet to Kossie. Unlike at the hotel, there was no winter vehicle transport and skiers had to ski the final kilometres to get there. Ray Adams' dog team helped transport supplies prior to oversnow vehicles.

Destroyed by a nighttime fire in mid-winter 1938, The Chalet was rebuilt the following year and its distinctive dome has graced the Charlottes slopes ever since. The remains of the Snowies' first ski lift can be seen there today too.

Ski accommodation of the period could be very basic. When Canberra Alpine Club built its Mt Franklin Chalet in the Brindabellas in 1938, there was no ceiling, only hessian dividing walls between bunkrooms, and a long ski trip along the Mt Franklin Road when heavy snow blocked the road in this era well before modern and organised snow-clearing.

At Franklin, skiers cut their own ski runs, made their own timber skis, and built their own ski lifts; the first in the 1950s was powered by a Harley Davidson motorbike engine. The second, built in the 1960s, was powered by an Austin A40 motor car which is still there despite the loss of The Chalet in the 2003 bushfires.

World War II saw Australian skiing go into the doldrums. But in 1949 the Snowy Mountains Hydro Electric Scheme began and thousands of Europeans came to Australia to work on the project. Many of them had skiing experience. Also, the scheme built a network of new roads into the mountains, making skiable areas more accessible.

Concurrently, increased private car ownership and leisure time boosted interest in skiing. The resort boom was born and it was in this period from the late 1950s and into the 1960s that places like Perisher, Smiggins and Thredbo pushed ahead. One of the founders of Thredbo, Tony Sponar, was an ex-Snowy worker. The camp buildings used by Norwegian workers on the Guthega Dam and Power Station in time became part of Guthega ski village.

The nature of skiing today has changed dramatically from the pioneering days. Networks of ski lifts, comfortable lodges and hotels, snow-making and grooming, and road snow-clearing have all made for a very different ski experience. To say nothing of the Ski Tube underground railway. The cost has risen accordingly too, with lift prices having passed the $100 per day mark some time back.

Concerns about climate change have focussed a lot on the ski industry. CSIRO, ANU and Bureau of Meteorology modelling have all predicted a rise in the snowline. Ex-Bureau officer Clem Davis's work at ANU concluded that snow depths had already decreased significantly during the 20th century. How the resorts would operate without snow-making facilities would be interesting to see, let alone in the future.

Of course not all skiing is done at the resorts on downhill runs accessed by lifts. Cross-country skiing has been popular for many decades. This quiet, uncrowded activity takes the skier into the winter bushland in a unique way. For those cross-country devotees who stay overnight in the back-country huts or in tents, their 'roughing it' experience has some similarities to that of the early skiers all those years ago.

There's nothing quite like the crunch and swish of fresh, natural snow under one's skis. The beauty of Australia's high country under snow is precious indeed. Only one-tenth of 1 per cent of Australia's landmass is snow country.

However one approaches it, whether on a resort slope or in the back country, the mountain environment is a very special part of this flat, old land. Those Kiandra diggers began a recreational activity which continues to mean much to many.