Terrifying Snow Odyssey Mach 4: Perisher weekend
So I'm actually only half way through the weekend. But I have the opportunity to blog so I will. After a bunch of variables fell in to place, I've managed to come along on Wonderboyf's brother's birthday snow trip weekend. We left on Thursday night far later than anticipated due to work for a couple of people. Our two cars convoyed to Jindabyne with the usual stops at Goulburn for late dinner and Cooma for petrol, leg stretching and hire chains (and skis for me). We arrived at our accommodation at around 2am which was not ideal, plus I'm the only girl in a room full of boys.
Yesterday we got up at 7am and headed up the mountain at around 8am. I headed for a lesson and the boys hit the slopes. Perisher has seemed to have a relatively good season however there has been no fresh snow and they're no longer making snow overnight. This means that, with such lovely warm sunshiny days, the conditions aren't ideal, infect they're kind of slushy.
I had a really good lesson with an instructor named Lewis and a bunch of people who he'd had all week. I felt a little like an imposter but it was fine. We went Ll over the mountain and worked on technique, I did find it was still taking a time for me to warm up and get the feet, legs, shoulder and brain to all work together. We did face some scary bits like a big dipper kind of bit. We hit some places that were really choppy and reminded me of the conditions when I had my accident and ruined my knee... Talk about freaky.
We headed back to base where I met the boys for lunch and caught up on how their morning was. We headed out for the afternoon and some of the boys wanted to go to the terrain park and go over the jumps etc. Wonderboyf and I went with them, but after a couple of runs down the side, it was a bit dull for us so we headed off in search for better runs. Front Valley was horrible! Full of people, slushy, choppy and icy all at once, it was a bit harrowing for me to negotiate. We headed over to the bottom of Pretty Valley and grabbed on of their famous hot chocolates, you know, the kind where you have to stir the thick chocolate from the bottom through the already chocolatey milk which is topped with marshmallows, chocolate whipped cream, a wafer and a freckle. We decided to go and check out the Interceptor so headed down the to the chair lift. As the lift took us up, we looked at the condition of the run and it was shiny, shiny ice. We decided perhaps that was not the run for us... Wonderboyf's brother rang to say they were heading down the mountain and we'd see them at home. We had already decided to head back to the Perisher centre and potentially fill in time so we instead headed back (again through the harrowing conditions) and jumped in the car and headed home.
We headed out and had chargrill for dinner while the boys had pizza. We all headed to the pub afterwards to watch the football (thank goodness for Internet phones and Big Buck Hunter is all I'm saying) and Wonderboyf bought some raffle tickets. The boys bailed but Wonderboyf wanted to stay for the raffle so we went head to head on Big Buck Hunter, I won :) . As they were getting ready to announce the raffle, I got miffed that they were drawing 3rd prize first (not overly uncommon but actually illegal) and I was explaining to Wonderboyf how they should be doing it, and they called his ticket number. He won 3rd prize off the first drawn ticket. I was miffed some more, but it was a bottle of wine so I couldn't be too unhappy. They drew second prize and then finally drew firs prize, three times. They had to redraw twice because the winners weren't there. And they called our ticket the third time for first prize. I was less miffed at this stage because, even though they did it backwards, we still won the prizes we were entitled to, first prize being a case of beer (which Wonderboyf was keen on) and a bottle of wine. For $5 outlay, that was a pretty good result. Last night saw a few drinks and wandering over to the other group staying in another large room and eventually heading to bed around 10.30pm.
Through the night, Wonderboyf wasn't so well, and this morning he didn't feel any better but still persevered to get in gear and come up the mountain. But as soon as we were up the top and having breakfast, it became clear he was in no state to hit the slopes. With no extra snow, Saturday crowds and an even warmer day today, the conditions were far from ideal. Because of the traffic we hadn't made in time for me to have a lesson, and I don't know the mountain well enough to go alone on The slushy runs and feel safe, and well, I didn't really want to go with the boys who were all boarders keen on jumps. Plus Wonderboyf looked in no condition to drive, so I drove him home and we've spent the afternoon with him asleep or generally feeling unwell.
Tonight is birthday night with silly hats and lots of drinks. We'll see how we go, but if Wonderboyf doesn't feel any better in the morning, we'll be on the road home pretty early. Otherwise we might go and squeeze a morning on the slopes but we're not hopeful for the conditions to be any good. I have a sneaking suspicion that one day of skiing is all I'll be getting this weekend to round out the snow odyssey. Better than a slap in the face I suppose.
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