What I did on my holidays, part deux
Continuing from where I left off in part 1, this time with photos!
Wednesday morning we left Jindabyne for the Skifields at 7:30 am in an effort to not get caught in an endless line of cars-with-snowchains inching their way up the hill. Those of you who know me will appreciate just how unusual that hour is for me - only achieved by going to bed about 4 hours earlier than normal the night before!
Skies were clear over Jindabyne, but the mountains were completely covered with cloud, so we couldn't tell yet how much snow had fallen: that soon changed. By Waste Point, just past the old Kosciousko National Park entrance (now moved uphill to Wilson's Valley) the road looked like this:
and by the new park entrace, it was snowing quite steadily and looked like this (with chains required for all 2wd vehicles):
It's pretty unusual for chains to be needed from so low, so we called Mum and Dad (who'd stayed back at the lodge with baby Brody) to wake them up with the good news. They trumped us though: by then it was snowing back in in Jindabyne.
We trailed behind the snowplough the rest of the way up to find the Perisher carpark under a couple of cm of new snow:
Thoroughly bored with Front Valley after Monday, we took the tube up to Blue Cow again to play in the freshies before the crowds arrived. It was still snowing on and off, but visibility was mostly quite good, leading to very pretty scenery
and a great couple of early runs down Zalis (which has been my favourite run for quite a few years now):
By midmorning, the sky was clearing and the crowds were pouring off the skitube so we all took a break to hike up behind the Blue Cow terminal to the top of Mt Blue Calf (sans skis, I might add). This area was completely untouched as yet, and the view out to the main range was spectacular, as were some of the ice formations on the snowgums:
Of course, we were entirely unable to resist the temptation of so much untracked snow for very long:
Returning to the terminal building, we met up with Mum, Dad and Brody who'd come up the hill after the main crowd rather than before, then returned to the slopes. All the extra people made for some entertainment and frustration on the chairlifts, such as several of my family coming a cropper on the unload:
and the lift queue from hell when the terminal chair stopped for about 15 minutes just before lunchtime due to a nasty accident at the top, stranding _everyone_ half-way down the mountain:
Some wag near the back of the queue yelled out that it was the random-guy-next-to-him's birthday and got heaps of people to sing happy birthday which kept us entertained for a bit (I'm fairly sure it wasn't actually his birthday), but mostly it was just a matter of waiting, waiting, waiting till we could get back up the hill to lunch.
In the afternoon, my sister-in-law had a proper ski lesson with an actual instructor (as opposed to just us) and my sister and I had a level 5 lesson to work on technique (and incidentally get to skip straight to the front of the lift queues all afternoon). Way back in 2003 I actually did a 3-day ski workshop which was for the levels higher than level 5, and which did great things for my skiing ability, but that is three years and two major injuries ago now, so the lower-level lesson was definitely a good idea. Most of the people in the class were noticably less confident than we two, but I still picked up some pointers and corrections for my bad skiing habits.
The lesson was held up on the summit runs (Zalis by intent and Excellerator because we talked the instructor into it) which had been well and truly skiied into submission by midafternoon, so it ended up being a lesson on how to ski the nasty irregular moguls that form when you get lots of intermediate skiers and snowboarders through fresh snow over hardpack. It was fun once I got the hang of it, but my knees were definitely protesting their overuse by the end of the day. More gym-time for me next year! I don't have any photos of this part of the afternoon due to needing to concentrate and not actually fall on or drop my camera (which is how I destroyed the last two).
As the day ended, rumours were flying round all the skitube crowd that more terain was about to be opened soon, so we decided to do the early morning thing again on Thursday in the hopes of freshies for a second day running. This was confirmed by the radio report during the car trip down: the Guthega links were to open for the first time this season. That was enough to get us up to PB for a fourth day.
Continued in part 3
Wednesday morning we left Jindabyne for the Skifields at 7:30 am in an effort to not get caught in an endless line of cars-with-snowchains inching their way up the hill. Those of you who know me will appreciate just how unusual that hour is for me - only achieved by going to bed about 4 hours earlier than normal the night before!
Skies were clear over Jindabyne, but the mountains were completely covered with cloud, so we couldn't tell yet how much snow had fallen: that soon changed. By Waste Point, just past the old Kosciousko National Park entrance (now moved uphill to Wilson's Valley) the road looked like this:
and by the new park entrace, it was snowing quite steadily and looked like this (with chains required for all 2wd vehicles):
It's pretty unusual for chains to be needed from so low, so we called Mum and Dad (who'd stayed back at the lodge with baby Brody) to wake them up with the good news. They trumped us though: by then it was snowing back in in Jindabyne.
We trailed behind the snowplough the rest of the way up to find the Perisher carpark under a couple of cm of new snow:
Thoroughly bored with Front Valley after Monday, we took the tube up to Blue Cow again to play in the freshies before the crowds arrived. It was still snowing on and off, but visibility was mostly quite good, leading to very pretty scenery
and a great couple of early runs down Zalis (which has been my favourite run for quite a few years now):
By midmorning, the sky was clearing and the crowds were pouring off the skitube so we all took a break to hike up behind the Blue Cow terminal to the top of Mt Blue Calf (sans skis, I might add). This area was completely untouched as yet, and the view out to the main range was spectacular, as were some of the ice formations on the snowgums:
Of course, we were entirely unable to resist the temptation of so much untracked snow for very long:
Returning to the terminal building, we met up with Mum, Dad and Brody who'd come up the hill after the main crowd rather than before, then returned to the slopes. All the extra people made for some entertainment and frustration on the chairlifts, such as several of my family coming a cropper on the unload:
and the lift queue from hell when the terminal chair stopped for about 15 minutes just before lunchtime due to a nasty accident at the top, stranding _everyone_ half-way down the mountain:
Some wag near the back of the queue yelled out that it was the random-guy-next-to-him's birthday and got heaps of people to sing happy birthday which kept us entertained for a bit (I'm fairly sure it wasn't actually his birthday), but mostly it was just a matter of waiting, waiting, waiting till we could get back up the hill to lunch.
In the afternoon, my sister-in-law had a proper ski lesson with an actual instructor (as opposed to just us) and my sister and I had a level 5 lesson to work on technique (and incidentally get to skip straight to the front of the lift queues all afternoon). Way back in 2003 I actually did a 3-day ski workshop which was for the levels higher than level 5, and which did great things for my skiing ability, but that is three years and two major injuries ago now, so the lower-level lesson was definitely a good idea. Most of the people in the class were noticably less confident than we two, but I still picked up some pointers and corrections for my bad skiing habits.
The lesson was held up on the summit runs (Zalis by intent and Excellerator because we talked the instructor into it) which had been well and truly skiied into submission by midafternoon, so it ended up being a lesson on how to ski the nasty irregular moguls that form when you get lots of intermediate skiers and snowboarders through fresh snow over hardpack. It was fun once I got the hang of it, but my knees were definitely protesting their overuse by the end of the day. More gym-time for me next year! I don't have any photos of this part of the afternoon due to needing to concentrate and not actually fall on or drop my camera (which is how I destroyed the last two).
As the day ended, rumours were flying round all the skitube crowd that more terain was about to be opened soon, so we decided to do the early morning thing again on Thursday in the hopes of freshies for a second day running. This was confirmed by the radio report during the car trip down: the Guthega links were to open for the first time this season. That was enough to get us up to PB for a fourth day.
Continued in part 3