Away From The Maddening Crowd - Almost

Considering the weather conditions, the snow conditions and that it was the Saturday midway through school holidays, I decided it would be a good time to go outback for a ski. Marion joined me at Karels T-bar and we headed out to North Ramshead. It was surprisingly warm and I was soon down to just a light cotton top and still I had perspiration dripping from the brim of my sun hat into my eyes. Whilst we had a coffee overlooking Leather Barrel Creek, Marion's 2-way radio revealed that many others were also somewhere out on the range.

It was a strange day. Before we reached the top of North Ramshead (i.e. the Nth Ramshead on the old maps, not the Nth Ramshead on newer maps) a couple of snow shoers heading in the same direction as us, asked if we were going to "the summit". I said "yes, this summit " (pointing at Nth Ramshead). I then asked them where they were going. They said "Mt Kosciuszko". We showed were the mountain was. They had been heading 90 degrees to the left of Kosi. It's a worry sometimes.

We came across several others out back going in different directions. Mostly they appeared to know where they were going.

I didn't enjoy the run through the trees, shrubberies and scrub on a mediocre cover of snow on the bottom half of our descent from South Ramshead. Otherwise it was a nice day out.

Upon reaching the lower Dead Horse Gap car park we found the Chooks (with frozen diesel Volvo), Richard & Sally, Jax, Waz, Traktorman and Karen, Noni and more. All having arrived by different ways. Both upper and lower car parks were chokka.

Some of the avalanche debris from the Mount Kosciuszko cornice was the size of automobiles

Amazing snow and ice formations highlighted against a perfect blue sky

Coffee stop on North Ramshead looking towards Middle Ramshead

Marion trying to get phone coverage from the roof of Australia

Looking towards Leather Barrel Gorge
Mt Feathertop (Vic) in the distant background

Paddy about to descend into the gorge
We think we saw Benny J and mate on the other side

From (Middle) Ramshead looking towards the Big Boggy
DHG is in between

The snow below South Ramshead was delicious
The main (Middle) Ramshead is in the far, far background

The upper gladed sections completely untracked

Unfortunately the bottom half was nothing as enjoyable as this

Today I went out for a short in-resort ski to stretch out some of the muscles overworked yesterday getting back to DHG.

Lucky Phil was enjoying his first ski weekend and Paulo was in town as well. The wind was up a tad this morning and the first hints of some fresh wind blown snow could be found between the ever-growing moguls around the resort.

It looks like we may get fresh snow around Tuesday or Wednesday. We could do with some more. Meanwhile the weather is fantastic: blue skies with sub zero temps keeping the snow squeaky dry. The snow guns have been blasting every night and building up the cover on the lower slopes.

Happy 91st Birthday to Frank and may there be many more!