If you asked someone where the world’s longest chairlift was built, most would probably guess the Alps or the Rockies. Few would expect the answer to be the Snowy Mountains of New South Wales, Australia. Yet for a brief moment in the mid-1960s, Australia held the title.
The ambitious Charlotte Pass chairlift, constructed between 1963 and 1964, stretched more than 5.5 kilometers (3.1 miles) across alpine ridgelines from the Thredbo Valley to Charlotte Pass. At the time, it was promoted as the longest chairlift in the world — an engineering feat intended to transform skiing in Australia.
Instead, it became one of the most notorious failures in Australian ski history.
A Solution to an Isolated Ski Resort
Today, Charlotte Pass Snow Resort remains cut off during winter, accessible only by oversnow transport from the Perisher Skitube terminal. But in the 1950s and early 1960s, before the Skitube existed, access to the remote alpine village was even more difficult.
The centerpiece of the resort was the historic Kosciuszko Chalet Hotel, first opened in 1930 and rebuilt in 1939 after a devastating fire. As skiing grew in popularity after World War II, pressure mounted for a more reliable way to transport visitors into the snowbound resort. The answer was audacious: build a giant chairlift over the mountains.
The project, constructed by Transfield for Kosciusko Chalet operations, reportedly cost £1.2 million — an enormous sum at the time. Construction crews used helicopters, oversnow vehicles and more than 130 workers to erect the lift across rugged alpine terrain.
According to contemporary reporting in The Sydney Morning Herald, the lift was hailed as the future of Australian skiing and was expected to unlock “virgin skiing territory” in the Snowy Mountains.
2 Chairlifts, 1 Giant Journey
Technically, the “world’s longest chairlift” was actually two connected chairlifts. The first section rose from near Sawpit Creek and the Thredbo River at roughly 4,220 feet, climbing over Mount Stilwell to the Ramshead Restaurant at approximately 6,750 feet. Skiers could disembark there to ski into Thredbo or continue onward toward Charlotte Pass. A second lift continued from Ramshead to the Chalet Terminal at Charlotte Pass, descending slightly to around 5,800 feet elevation.
In total, the system featured:
- around 50 towers
- eight stations
- more than 5.5 kilometres of lift line
- brightly coloured fibreglass weather canopies on chairs
For Australian skiing in the early 1960s, it was unlike anything seen before.
“Pretty Dicey in Bad Weather”
The problem was the Snowy Mountains themselves. The lift opened into one of the harshest winters on record in 1964. Heavy snowfall combined with fierce winds created constant operational problems, particularly along the highly exposed ridgelines near Ramshead.
Former visitors later recalled chairs derailing from towers during storms, while snowdrifts buried lift infrastructure. One skier who rode the lift during its opening season remembered the experience as “pretty dicey in bad weather.”
“The second lift which terminated at Charlotte Pass hardly ever ran due to the high wind problems,” a member of the Ski.com.au forum identified as “shrimp” recalled decades later. The chairlift’s brightly coloured fibreglass bubbles — designed to shield passengers from wind — became symbolic of the project’s struggle against the brutal alpine environment. At times, winds were reportedly so severe that chairs came off the pulleys entirely.
While chairlift derailments were not unheard of in the 1960s ski industry, the scale and exposure of the Charlotte Pass lift amplified the danger dramatically.
The Collapse of an Alpine Dream
After operating for only the 1964 and 1965 ski seasons, the project collapsed financially and the operators went into receivership. The lift was dismantled soon afterwards.
Today, little remains beyond scattered foundations and fading memories among Australian skiers who experienced one of the country’s boldest mountain engineering projects.
In many ways, the chairlift was decades ahead of its time — an attempt to create the kind of interconnected alpine transport systems already emerging in Europe. But the technology of the era, combined with the volatile weather of the Snowy Mountains, proved too much.
For just two winters, however, Australia could claim something few would ever expect: The world’s longest chairlift stood in the Snowy Mountains.
