Drifting Towards Summer

Last Wednesday it snowed in Thredbo. Not as much as in the Victorian resorts and what did settle was gone again in a couple of hours, except where the snow fell on old snow.

The next day was a brilliant day after an overnight freeze so it was yet another chance to pick up the sticks and head out the back. The old drifts on Signature Hill had a fair bit of new snow and knowing how sticky this could be I decided to head to the top of Summer Drift. The upper drift had severely reduced in size since my last visit, although I did have 4 runs on it. The lower drift provided me with around 20 turns and I did 4 sets of 8s between coffee and lunch breaks.

Today also had that look to it - an overnight freeze, little breeze and clear blue skies. I thought I'd take my skis out to see if the Fat Lady had already sung. Not quite. There was no sign of last week's new snow but the drifts had not shrunk much either. My 8 x 8s were becoming visible again on the hill so I decided I would simply go to the lower part of Summer Drift and do a few turns. I had a total of 10 runs, which required around 2100 steps up the slope for around 160 turns in total. The snow was so firm first up that it took me two kicks to get my toes into the steeper parts. The surface is anything but smooth but that adds to the challenge on top of the exercise. But the real bonus today was the fantastic colours of the wild flowers around me. This is rare, to be skiing on snow (well, I call it that) with white, pink, orange and mauve wild flowers all around.

Last Wednesday's snowfall on the upper mountain
My glove gives scale to the unevenness of the snow cover

Mount Kosciuszko last Thursday with new snow sitting on old pink snow

Doing 8's again on Summer Drift last Thursday

Very little of the new snow survived 24 hours

Just for a change - a shot of the Hill taken from below the bridge

As the fog lifted this morning I decided to leave my tracks on the Hill untouched

Wild flowers of pink, orange, white, purple and mauve growing right up to the snow drifts

Today's turns didn't leave much impact on the firm & bouncy surface

Some of the beauties springing up all over the place

And finally, from Andy in Niseko:
220cm base at mid mountain, over a metre at base and knee to nuts (thigh deep) today … it snowed 25-35cm yesterday and still coming down. And they're making snow?

After today's fun, I'm not sure if that was my last ski. There's some less than perfect weather on its way and that may well determine whether I try again before Christmas. Today made it day 122 this season.

Last Thursday (when I was skiing) Canberra Airport recorded it coldest ever December day and snowflakes were recorded in the area.

Time for a grump:
Being concerned about climate change as I am, I recently wrote to my Federal Member Mike Kelly, asking him that if burning coal was so bad for the planet that we had to have a tax on it, then why was the Federal Government allowing increasing exports of coal to other countries and massive dredging beside the Great Barrier Reef for more coal export ports? His response was "Coal is, and will remain, an integral part of Australia's economy through its contribution to regional economic and social development."

I don't doubt that but can I extrapolate from this that I should feel reassured that those other countries burning our coal at an ever increasing rate will not be affecting our atmosphere or climate and that our carbon tax will make up for the ever increasing world output of CO2 gas from burning Australian coal? Should we be proud to have Australian businesses fail and Australians lose their jobs due to the non-competitive nature of our carbon tax only imposed on Australian coal actually used in Australia? Either burning coal is bad or it is not. It should not matter in which country it is burnt - surely we all share the same atmosphere. I find the double standards alarming.