{"id":616147,"date":"2026-04-19T01:22:45","date_gmt":"2026-04-19T01:22:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/616147\/"},"modified":"2026-04-19T01:22:45","modified_gmt":"2026-04-19T01:22:45","slug":"couple-makes-handmade-skis-out-of-australian-grown-timber-in-nsw-snowy-mountains","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/616147\/","title":{"rendered":"Couple makes handmade skis out of Australian-grown timber in NSW Snowy Mountains"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jonathan and Steph Paige didn’t quite know what they were embarking upon when they decided to make handmade skis out of Australian-grown timber.<\/p>\n

“You could probably get a job at a big company in Europe or the US and have somebody show you the ropes,” Jonathan Paige said.<\/p>\n

“Being here, it was very much just learn as you go, refine, reiterate.”<\/p>\n

It was in 2019, when the husband-and-wife ski enthusiasts were living in Western Australia \u2014 a place far removed from the Australian snow scene \u2014 that Jonathan “JP” decided to give ski making a go.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The couple makes skis from Australian-grown timber. (ABC Landline: Floss Adams)<\/p>\n

“The first couple of pairs we pressed were catastrophic. The first one was a total botched job,” JP said.<\/p>\n

But they were “so pumped”, despite persisting through a trial-and-error process not for the faint-hearted.<\/p>\n

“There are so many variables. Temperature, humidity of the timber, the day you’re milling it, the day you’re gluing it up, the type of timber you’re using,” he said.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Jonathan Paige has made more than 100 pairs of skis over the past five years. (ABC Landline: Floss Adams)<\/p>\n

Australian timber skis<\/p>\n

Years on, the Paiges have fine-tuned their craft and now operate out of a workshop in Jindabyne in the NSW Snowy Mountains.<\/p>\n

At the heart of the handmade skis is a wooden core made from a carefully considered combination of Australian-grown alpine ash, jarrah and paulownia.<\/p>\n

The core’s main timber is a “dense” alpine ash hardwood, a eucalypt native to south-eastern Australia that allows for flexibility in the ski.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The core of the skis is made entirely from Australian-grown timber. (ABC Landline: Floss Adams)<\/p>\n

“It does give a little weight to the ski,” Steph said.<\/p>\n

“You need that weight to improve the feel [of the ski], so when you’re skiing through something that may not be perfect power or perfect grooming, you want your ski not to be chattering away.”<\/p>\n

This alpine ash is harvested by the NSW Forestry Corporation in the Riverina region, west of Canberra, and processed at a timber mill in Eden on the NSW far south coast.<\/p>\n

As of March, the alpine ash forests of the Australian mainland have been declared as endangered by the federal government.<\/p>\n

The request for the specific hardwood boards was far from the usual orders that pass across Damien Bunting’s desk.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Damien Bunting runs South Coast timber in Eden.\u00a0 (ABC Landline: Floss Adams)<\/p>\n

“This is a little bit more meticulous, and you’ve got to really search for the right quality boards,” the general manager of South Coast Timber said.<\/p>\n

“It is quite specific. They can’t have any knots or any imperfections at all.<\/p>\n

“It can get a little bit monotonous sometimes in the mill, so when you get an opportunity to do something that’s a little bit out of the box, you’re like, ‘Let’s get into it'”.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The mill commonly processes high-volume orders of timber for flooring and decking. (ABC Landline: Floss Adams)<\/p>\n

The alpine ash is cut when conditions are right and air dried, before spending weeks in a 40-degree Celsius pre-dryer and a kiln.<\/p>\n

This drying process can take about six months.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“When you’re dealing with a natural product, you can’t rush it, or maybe you can, but you’re risking destroying it,” Mr Bunting said.\"A<\/p>\n

Damien Bunting says the mill had to spend time looking for specific boards for the couple. (ABC Landline: Floss Adams)<\/p>\n

“Take your time, you push it through nicely and the rewards are at the other end.”<\/p>\n

In JP and Steph’s skis, the alpine ash is joined with the light balsa wood paulownia, and a thin piece of native jarrah holds the core together.<\/p>\n

“[Jarrah] is really good at taking an impact because the grains are so tightly packed and it is naturally water and rot resistant,” Steph said.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The Paiges sourced jarrah from this tree that fell down in a storm.\u00a0 (Supplied)<\/p>\n

Jarrah is a hardwood native to Western Australia, which has become more challenging to access since the state government banned native forest logging in 2024.<\/p>\n

The couple had previously accessed jarrah from a mill that was shutting down in Albany in WA and from a tree that had fallen during a storm on a family member’s property.<\/p>\n

\"Three<\/p>\n

Alpine ash, paulownia and native jarrah (left to right) are used in the skis. (ABC Landline: Floss Adams)<\/p>\n

The Paiges said they were now working with a mill in WA to source timber from other jarrah trees that had already fallen or were being cut down for construction projects, but they were mindful about what they’re using.<\/p>\n

“We’re using small dimensions and so we’re able to extend the use of a single board through that,” JP said.<\/p>\n

“The timber that we’re using increases the life cycle of the ski itself, and so [it is] encouraging people to use the same ski for longer and not buy new pairs every year.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The Paiges made their own ski press.\u00a0 (ABC Landline: Floss Adams)<\/p>\n

Labour of love<\/p>\n

The wooden core is glued and dried, before it is laminated between a plastic base and a wood veneer top sheet, that is all held together by a steel edge.<\/p>\n

It then takes weeks to cut, grind, polish and oil the skis before they are tuned, waxed and have their bindings mounted.<\/p>\n

“Every step takes time and it all adds up, but everything takes the amount of time it needs. Nothing is fast here,” JP said.\"A<\/p>\n

The skis take months to make.\u00a0 (ABC Landline: Floss Adams)<\/p>\n

The plastic base and ski edge are imported products, but the rest of the materials in the skis are Australian made.<\/p>\n

Living in a country more familiar with sun and surfing than snow-covered mountains makes the ski-making process all that more challenging, with high freight costs and a small local industry to rely on.<\/p>\n

‘Whilst we’re deep in winter, it’s summertime in the northern hemisphere. Most of your suppliers \u2026 we’re just not on that same schedule,” JP said.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Steph and Jonathan Paige met while skiing in New Zealand. (Supplied)<\/p>\n

The first winter<\/p>\n

Desert Skis only opened to the public in winter 2025, after five years of trial and error and testing product samples.<\/p>\n

“It was motivating because after five years, you are kind of like, ‘This is a long journey. This is a lot of money. Is this going to be worth it?'” Steph said.<\/p>\n

“There are times when you’re kind of looking at each other like, ‘What are we doing?'”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The couple had baby Raymond in April 2025. (ABC Landline: Floss Adams)<\/p>\n

Local backcountry skier Rowan Kennedy, a friend of the Paiges, is among their growing base of customers.<\/p>\n

“It brings joy, seeing the creation of the ski, knowing where the timber comes from, knowing it’s locally sourced,” Mr Kennedy said.<\/p>\n

“You see the production from start to finish and you know that you’re giving a job to a local person.”\"A<\/p>\n

Rowan Kennedy is a skier based in the NSW Snowy Mountains.\u00a0 (ABC Landline: Floss Adams)<\/p>\n

Steph said they want to keep the business manageable in the future, so that sustainability could remain at the fore.<\/p>\n

“It’s really important to us that they are handmade, that we respect the timbers that we’re using, that we can source locally,” she said.<\/p>\n

“If we scaled too quickly, too fast, we wouldn’t be able to control the quality and there would be more waste.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Steph Paige’s background as an industrial electrician and Jonathan’s as a mechanical engineer has helped. (ABC Landline: Floss Adams)<\/p>\n

For JP, the goal has always remained simple: to connect back to their beloved snow community by making a local product that can be ridden in the alps.<\/p>\n

“It might be four, five, six, seven, eight of us on our skis that we’ve made,” he said.<\/p>\n

“It’s cool when you sit there and just take it in for a minute. You go, ‘Man, this is rad’.<\/p>\n

“Everything we’re having fun on is from here. How cool is that?”<\/p>\n

Watch ABC TV’s Landline at 12:30pm AEST on Sunday or stream any time on ABC iview<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jonathan and Steph Paige didn’t quite know what they were embarking upon when they decided to make handmade…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":616148,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[297175,64,63,103728,299013,27946,44,85849,10803,299011,299012,12654],"class_list":["post-616147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-alpine-ash","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-eucalypt","tag-hardwood","tag-landline","tag-news","tag-ski","tag-snow","tag-snowsports","tag-south-coast-timber-mill","tag-timber"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=616147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616147\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/616148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=616147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=616147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=616147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}