![Skiers are keen to get back to the action at Thredbo Resort. Picture: Supplied Skiers are keen to get back to the action at Thredbo Resort. Picture: Supplied](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/fdcx/doc7653vqsultztp62n1ss.jpg/r0_294_5760_3545_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
Keen boarders and skiers have joined a long queue for their chance to head to the snow this season, with most weekends already sold out.
Create a free account to read this article
or signup to continue reading
More than 30,000 people were queued for Thredbo Resort's online booking system on Thursday night, which dropped to around 20,000 people by Friday morning with a wait time of about an hour.
For those that made it through, available dates were scarce.
Every day from the opening of the season on June 22 to July 20 is booked out.
Most weekends in July are also unavailable and the first three in August.
To allow for social distancing Thredbo Resort has almost halved their capacity on the mountain this year.
Once they made it through the queue, people were able to access the website for 10 minutes to book their ski lift. But a number of people had faced difficulties once reaching the end of the queue.
Sarah Kelly said she was surprised to see she was already in the queue when she checked the website before 12pm.
"When 12 o'clock went around that number seemed to just disappear and was replaced with a different number," she said.
"Then I waited, until almost 3 o'clock until I got to the very front of the queue, it said I'd be redirected to the website. It [then] said I took too long, and then it came up with a big error server message," she said.
"I didn't want to press refresh, I pressed backspace after it timed out, tried to reload it, and ultimately I ended up back in a queue."
The website queue had an email notification option, which eager skiers could use to lodge their email to be held in the queue.
But Tony Ballard said the email system did not work for him.
"I joined and filled in my email, which they said ... would hold you in the live line and [they would] email when your turn is ready," he said.
After receiving the email, he clicked the link which went to an "invalid URL" error page.
"[I] then went back to site, it said it was my turn, it loaded a few minutes and then kicked me back thousands of places from where I was before."
In a statement, a representative from Thredbo Resort said they were overwhelmed by the demand, but thrilled that guests were eager to return to the mountain.
"We had as many as 25,000 people visiting our online store to purchase lift passes, being the biggest volume we have ever experienced on our online store," the statement read.
"These are unusual times; we've experienced an unprecedented amount of traffic highlighting we are all ready to get back skiing and snowboarding again this season.
"We are working hard to ensure everyone is able to purchase their desired passes, and we appreciate our guests' patience as we accommodate everyone under the new government restrictions.
"We are excited to welcome everyone back to Thredbo this winter."
While you're with us...
...you might also enjoy