Its accessibility from Launceston, together with the existence of a ski village on the plateau make Ben Lomond an all year round favourite for tourists and hikers.

The Tasmanian Aboriginal palawa kani name for Ben Lomond is turapina[3] and was recorded in various word lists as turbunna, toorbunna or toorerpunner.

Although much of the plateau is stony with areas of low and often stunted forms of vegetation, the remainder of the mountain contains a wide variety of habitats ranging from alpine moorland to dense forest.

The most common native species recorded on the plateau are the herbs Poa gunnii (tussock grass) and Gentianella diemensis, the shrubs, Richea scoparia, Orites acicularis and Pentachondra pumila, Baeckea gunniana and Epacris serpyllifolia.

Of particular interest is the endemic northern snow skink Niveoscincus greeni which is an alpine species restricted to several other mountain top areas in the State.

There are records of aboriginal huts or dwellings around the foothills of Stacks Bluff and around the headwaters of the South Esk River near modern day Mathinna.

[34][35] Moreover, the remains of Aboriginal quarry works under Coalmine Crag suggest that the plateau was used for sustained periods by the Plangermaireener, as stone tools were needed for dressing game.

[36][37] The clans of the Ben Lomond Nation were displaced in the early 1800s by extensive colonial occupation up the South Esk river and its tributaries.

First contact may well have been peaceable as convict hunters and aboriginal people traded kangaroos and hunting dogs early in the colony's history.

[38] Into the 1820s free land grants to wealthy settlers displaced convict hunters and led to the establishment of pastoralism at the Ben Lomond frontier, particularly up the Nile and Esk Rivers.

In 1825 two convicts assigned to Andrew Barclay and James Cox on the Nile River, near Deddington, were killed and mutilated by Ben Lomond clanspeople in a dispute over women and ownership of hunting dogs.

For example, the prominent settler James Cox, at Clarendon on the Nile River, raised the Aboriginal William 'Black Bill' Ponsonby from a child.

[41] As hostilities escalated across Tasmania in the Black War the colonial government authorised the employment of Roving Parties (essentially armed bounty hunters) to conciliate the remaining free aboriginal tribesmen.

The raiding party attacked several remote settler and stockman's huts from Oyster Bay to Avoca - alongside their traditional hunting and travelling route on the Ben Lomond frontier.

[45] However, by late 1830, remnants of the Aboriginal clans were living a precarious existence on the edge of the frontier, harried by alert colonial settlers and militia and denied access to their hunting grounds.

[47] In December 1830, Robinson had relocated 33 Tasmanian Aboriginals to nearby Swan Island and he subsequently sent a party searching throughout the Northeast looking for the remnants of the Ben Lomond, and north-eastern peoples, without success.

[48] After the failure of the 'Black Line' in 1830, and after pressure from settlers, Colonial Governor George Arthur announced on 14 March 1831 his new policy of the removal of Aborigines from Tasmania.

Robinson "....gave an unequivocal commitment that if hostilities ceased, Aborigines would be protected and have their essential needs met by the government while being able to live and hunt within their own districts.

[51]: 197, 159  The aboriginal people fared poorly at Wybalenna and then when relocated to Oyster Cove, with disease and malnutrition contributing to high mortality and low birth rates.

[52] The Ben Lomond Nation ceased to exist as a political and cultural entity after the occupation of their country and the subsequent murder, abduction or exile of its people.

[56][57] The first scientific visit to the Ben Lomond plateau was made by the Polish explorer Paul Edmond de Strzelecki on 28 November 1841 and he measured the height of Stacks Bluff (albeit incorrectly) by barometry as 5002 feet.

[58] In 1852; after the site was surveyed by James Sprent, the Government Surveyor, a Trigonometric Point was constructed on Stacks Bluff (the southernmost extremity of Ben Lomond) using convict labour.

Tin and tungsten were the other minerals to be obtained in the southern foothills of Ben Lomond and the townships of Rossarden and Storys Creek arose from the 1920s to 1957 around these mines.

Mining interests also existed on the north-west of the mountain, around the island peak of Ragged Jack, where the prospect of silver and tin was investigated, but they proved to be economically unviable.

At this time the principal track to the plateau lay across the Ben Lomond Marshes ascending the western side of Stacks Bluff.

[70] Avoca, being located on the Fingal train line from Launceston, was the staging point for excursions to the mountain, with local guides arranging packhorses, camping equipment and suitable campsites below the plateau.

Excursions in the 1880s became popular enough for a landowner to build a two-storey hotel with 12 rooms, a store, bakehouse and stables at the northern end of the Ben Lomond Marshes for the use of excursionists and miners.

In July 1929 Fred Smithies, a pioneer of skiing on Ben Lomond, accompanied the Tasmanian government's Tourism Director on a field trip to the plateau with the aim of establishing the feasibility of a skifield.

Subsequent developments have included new ski lifts, visitor facilities, a licensed inn and accommodation, sewerage system, and improved access.

[90] Jacobs Ladder has been made notorious as the steep training ground for Tour de France cyclist Richie Porte and is featured as a cycling destination in itself.