FreeBOM 2024 – Australia’s Coolest Ski Event Goes Nocturnal in Mt Buller

Mountainwatch | Watkin McLennan. All photos Tony Harrington

The FreeBOM glossary:

FreeBOM: A Mt Buller event where participants come together to freeski with music.

Spiritual Leader: The skier that best demonstrates the FreeBOM spirit.

FreeBOM Spirit: Skiing with a smile, bringing people along for the ride, dancing on the line between chaos and control, skiing with a disregard for one’s body.

Freestyle Slalom: A ski run peppered with obstacles like jumps, berms, gates and tunnels.

Family Run: A family that skis together sticks together – The award for the best family performance.

Senderson: Sending your first ever backflip in front of a 200-strong crowd under lights on Bourke Street.

FreeBOM went nocturnal for the first time last weekend, hosted on Bourke Street under lights on Saturday night. Instead of Wood Run’s monster free-bumps skiers weaved and aired down a freestyle slalom course. Spectators watched on in awe as “The Boys” led by Max Bad-Ass Bardas disregarded the bottom jump’s landing and opted for the flat, time after time – truly embodying the FreeBOM spirit.

This annual Buller event is core. Custom buffs are handed out in advance which always rallys up the community with excitement. “FreeBOM is coming”, they whisper in the Koflers coffee line. “Who will be Spiritual Leader this year?”

Under lights was different.

More inclusive, three-year-olds rubbed shoulders with the mountain’s (country’s) best skiers. Dads skied alongside their daughters – the winner of the Family Run went to the Mad-dog Maddocks dressed in fluoro tracksuits resembling sci-fi skiers doing dry-land training as their spaceship hurtled towards Jupiter’s Europa.

More of a crowd. Let’s be honest, black runs aren’t the friendliest place for a party, especially when most people on the mountain who can actually ski the black run are skiing in the event. It’s hard to attract a crowd on Wood Run. We rely on cheers from the chair overhead and can always count on the friendly moguls to share a laugh with.

This year on Bourke Street ski patrol could watch as they ate dinner at their base. The crowd was all smiles enjoying the odd dumpling from Buller’s amazing Vietnamese Food Trailer. And this year we had a special treat – Pit Viper brought the party. The eyewear brand born from ski bum culture is probably the only brand in skiing that understands FreeBOM. So much so they brought DJ Eddy. Together the finish area was full of mono-skis, radical sunnies, and quietly crude humour.

More air. The freestyle slalom was a bit different to the bumps. For one it was constructed. A bit of grooming the night before and some careful shaping by Mitch Reeves and the TBR all-mountain team on the day. Add in a few gates and a tunnel of love and you have a wild ski run fun for everyone.

And skiers had fun, but probably the most fun was had by Henry Henderson aka Henry Senderson who threw his first backflip on snow in front of a raucous crowd. Another stand-out performance went to the Uno Pack – former 2023 Spiritual Leader Crystal Whitley’s amazing group of girls who played their best hand to go home with a $200-dollar voucher from Koflers.

But it was a duo of men that stole the show. There were back flips all night but there is nothing quite like the pop of a mogul skier. Angus Hill won the Winkipop award with some amazing D spin 720s. Lachy Turner touched the moon with enormously high back flips whilst wearing a tutu and for that won the Spiritual Leader Award and took home the sacred snow gum trophy.

Despite being on Bourke Street, the least freeski of all of Buller’s runs, FreeBOM was on fire this year. Despite marginal snow and weather, FreeBOM was the funnest hour of skiing all season. In the misappropriated words of William Wallace, “You may melt our snow, but you will never melt our FreeBOM!”

Thank you to TBR for nurturing the next generation of Buller freeskiers. And thank you to Mt Buller which is committed to fostering the freeski community and culture because they understand that freeskiing is at the heart of every great ski resort.