Summer or Winter Thredbo is perfect for you

Thredbo must have the most beds per capita of any village in Australia. While only 477 people called Thredbo home the last time a census was taken, the village has over 4000 beds. That’s only a fraction of the number needed to accommodate the 700,000 who come to Thredbo to ski and snowboard every South Hemisphere winter, though.

When ski season comes around during the Southern Hemisphere winter, ski and snowboard lovers check out the snow conditions at Thredbo first. With over fifty runs, including Australia’s steepest and longest, Thredbo has enough slopes to challenge even the most experienced skiers and snowboarders. The longest descent threads together several shorter runs for a continuous run of 3 miles (6kms). The most challenging run, Funnel Web is for experts only and includes one death-defying near vertical section.

If Thredbo has one thing going against it, it would be the low altitude of the village. Not to be undone by nature, the resort made the Southern Hemisphere’s largest investment in snowmaking equipment. In addition, they developed several lower altitude special purpose slopes, ranging from Wombat World for the kiddies to a park strictly reserved for hardcore skiers and snowboarders.

At the end of the ski season, the action dies down in Thredbo, but as soon as the warm season rolls around, the visitors start coming back. Since mountain biking took off in the early 90s, Thredbo has become world renowned as a great place for mountain biking and has even hosted international mountain bike events that have attracted Olympic level cyclists to the resort.

Downhill runs are the most challenging for cyclists and Thredbo’s Cannonball Run is known as one of the world’s most challenging. Starting at Eagle’s Nest after a ride up the Kosciusko Express Quad lift, you descend over 2000 vertical feet (600 metres) over a distance of 2 miles (4.2km). With drop-offs, switchbacks and challenging single tracks galore, the Cannonball Run is not for the faint hearted mountain biker.

If cross country mountain biking is more to your liking, Thredbo is perfect for you, too. Aside from the many firetrails, there are also many great singletrack rides that take you deep within Kosciusko National Park. One popular way to spend the day on your mountain bike without getting too far from civilisation is to take one of the many trails that link Thredbo with its neighbouring villages.

If you like "bushwalking", as Aussie’s call hiking, you will find one of Australia’s classic one day hikes in Thredbo. You can make it from the base of Mount Kosciusko to its summit and back in just 4 to 6 hours. Most hikers make a day of it and start early, so they can enjoy every beautiful step of the journey.

Thredbo is such a popular destination both in summer and winter, it’s best to book your Thredbo accommodation or Snowy Mountains accommodation well in advance if you want to stay in the heart of the action. With everything from inexpensive backpacker lodges to luxurious lodges to choose from, you can find something to suit your needs to a ‘T’.