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Has anyone ridden at Falls creek?
I'm tossing up mt buller vs falls creek. I believe there are great trails at both, but they are 4 hours apart!
Buller has the new alpine epic trail, falls creek has similar I believe and has also hosted championship races..
If I lived in Melbourne, I could do both on different weekends. But I live in sydney!
Any recommendations and insight appreciated.
Cheers
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I haven't ridden either yet although they are both on my to do list, I did ski in falls creek last year and can tell just from the skiing that the terrain would make for excellent mtb'ing not to mention that you also have Mt beauty only 45 mins drive from there also, you literally have to drive past Mt beauty to get to falls creek and again as you leave bogong NP so why not do both while your there? I'm from Sydney too which makes the shorter trip to falls creek and Mt beauty just a little bit more appealing than Buller at the moment but they are both going to be epic drives either way.
P.s to give you a good idea of drive time to Falls Creek I live near Liverpool and it took us nearly exactly 7 hours drive virtually non stop.
Having done both I'd recommend Buller - a much better network of trails that will keep you going for days. Falls is still developing their XC trails. I haven't been to Mt Beauty so can't speak for there, but my limited time in Buller kept me wanting to go back for more. It isnt just the epic trail, the trails around the village are phenomenal and easily accessed.
Falls plus mt beauty plus bright probably gets close to Buller.although most people really enjoy Buller. So it depends if you want to stay in one place or do some shortish trips.
Mt Beauty is steep with narrow natural terrain tracks. The largest climb I have done there is 900m verticle and you can do the entire descent on single track. It's not marked out very well though so it's hard to find the good trails.
Hope that helps.
you stay well away from anything that mentions "Falls" in the name. Either that, or book the helicopter in advance.
... although I've only been on the bike today at Falls Creek and there is a bit more to see if the weather gets kind. Buller has the better network and variety at the moment (and probably the momentum in terms of usage numbers), but Falls Creek is working hard to catch up. And the trails we did today after some heavy rain last night were in great nick - they recover really well. World Trail utes out all over the place adding to the network at the moment.
I found at Buller and here at Falls Creek that I really notice the altitude. Makes breathing tougher and it's a bit like doing the climb from Seamans Hut to Kosi - the air is quite a bit thinner up here.
Another factor to check with making the choice is whether there will be any shuttles or lifts running at the time you want to come down. Unless you like grinding uphill gasping for air, some altitude assistance would be useful if you want to get max riding for the weekend.