Skijoring first down under

Last year while Mt Buller was celebrating 100 years since intrepid pioneers came up the mountain on horseback and first skied the mountain, an exciting idea was taking shape… Filmmaker Kristin Donohue had made a media splash with her video of ‘horse surfing’ on the Gold Coast that quickly went viral and she wondered if she could do something similar on snow, swapping a surfboard for a snowboard – so she gave us a call.

It was a collaboration that quickly built into a closely shared vision to create a special project combining horses, riders, skiers and snowboarders. Mt Buller has a deep connection to horses and the families in the region who pioneered this part of the high country, which was all done on horseback. For sometime there were still horsedrawn wagon rides in the village and not too long ago there were still stables. As anyone from this part of the world will tell you, The Man from Snowy River was filmed here with a strong line up of locals in the credits.

Snowboarder Brendan Coleman takes flight as Steph Dunnachie gallops her steed down the course. Photo Tony Harrington

Skijoring is the name of the sport that involves a skier (or snowboarder) being pulled behind a horse. In some instances, it’s even done with dogs, skidoos and cars! As far as we know there hasn’t been a skijoring event held in Australia and there was great excitement within the Mt Buller community to lead the way and do it here.

A uniquely talented team worked for over a year to pull together a plan on how to bring the idea to life, and that dream became reality just a couple of weeks ago. A few days after a late season snowfall the temperature dipped, the snowpack firmed up and then skies cleared. With support from resort management to safely float the horses into the village, the mountain operations team to support on snow, grooming crew to shape and build a course, a tireless guest experience crew to set safety fencing and pick up the horse poo (!) and countless others behind the scenes to move haybales and support an on-snow film shoot – everything came together and the riders, the beautiful horses and some very excited skiers and snowboarders made a little magic on a mountaintop.

Steph and Nikia walk the horses between laps on Tirol flat Photo Tony Harrington

Look out for local skiers Hannes Grimus and Mietta Passon in the clip. Hannes even put in hours the night before to climb in the snowcat and shape the course.

Celia Petrig making a connection with her ride Photo Tony Harrington

Dive into the full video and enjoy the ride!  

Mt Buller is proud to partner with Cowgirl Surf Club, INEOS Grenadier, Ariat and Pit Viper in this unique project.