By ED MAHON

THE first ski party visited Mt Buller in July of 1924 and so beginning what is now more than a century of winter sports on the mountain.

Skiing as a sport and pastime started to grow rapidly from 1924, with a chalet built at Horse Hill in 1929 and the Ski Club of Victoria (SCV) building a hut in the Boggy Creek area (near Grimus chairlift mid-load), although in those first few decades it was more akin to what we would now call backcountry skiing.

The development of the sport was put on hold by the Second World War though by the late 1940's access was improving, lodges were being built as the village started to form and the first lift was installed.

With SCV opening the Ivor Whittaker Memorial Lodge (The Whitt) in 1947 and then commencing operation of a rope tow on Bourke St in 1949, Mt Buller was increasing in popularity as a destination for Victorian skiers and inevitably injuries were becoming more commonplace.

During the 1949 season, the then Whitt Manager, Maurice Selle, started a small informal ski patrol operating out of the first aid room at the Whitt.

At the start of the 1950 season when asking the Australian Red Cross Society for consent to use the Red Cross symbol (as they were going to get some uniforms made), the SCV sparked the Society's interest in starting an organised ski patrol system in Victoria. By July of that season the Victorian Red Cross Ski Patrol Corps had been formed and was operating on Mt Buller.

Just like today, there were requirements to be met, with patrollers having to pass a ski test and complete first aid training.

Within a few years the Red Cross had been replaced by the Victorian Ski Association (VSA) as the umbrella group for ski patrolling in Victoria and it had become the VSA Ski Rescue Service.

The Ski Rescue Service as part of the VSA would go on to be the foundation of ski patrolling in Victoria through to the 1970’s.

By 1958 there was a duty medical roster so there was a doctor to treat patients once they’d been brought back to the Village by the Ski Patrol.

Within 10 years of the Ski Patrol starting, Mt Buller had gone from the nucleus of a village and one rope-tow to having a t-bar on Bourke St/Baldy and on Federation as well as rope-tows on Skyline and Bull Run, Tirol and near Kofler’s.

The village was growing and along with the Whitt and more lodges, there was also the original Kooroora and Alberg.

The 1960’s was set to see even more expansion of the ski field and the village at Mt Buller and a busier time for the Ski Patrol.