More Freshies - But Then It's Still October

It snowed in Thredbo on and off for hours yesterday, settling briefly in the village between sunny breaks. This morning dawned a beautiful day. The wind chill up top was -16C and it wasn't till around 10am that the air temp actually got above freezing. Of course the bureau's forecast of winds 25-35kph were as usual a little underestimated and turned out to be 30-60.

I certainly didn't make first chair on Snowgums but I was determined to get some freshies ;-)

Although I warmed a little on the climb up from Snowgums I didn't remove my fleece until at the base of the "hill". The breeze was quite fresh and it felt like one of those beautiful sunny winter days with about 10cms of fresh on much of the snow pack. A quick glance at the time when I reached the top of the North Face and it was already 11am. The run down was great. The new snow was not sticky or slow and neither had it bonded to the old brown base so I had snow balls rolling around me at every turn.

The boot pack I put in was easy and I just kept reusing it. The Main Face was a little slower on the fresh but so much fun. I soon found I was running out of time and did a long one from the top none stop to within about 50m of the walking track. A morning well spent and a fun way to exercise.

Looking down Merritts Creek

The view from the top of the Main Face back to Eagles Nest

Signs of the thaw and freeze, thaw and freeze in the high alpine

Freshies on the Main Face

The boot pack - please treat it with respect if you use it tomorrow

The North Face
Strangely most of my tracks could not be seen in the bright light conditions

Waterfalls are appearing everywhere and then disappearing back under the snow

Speaking of waterfalls - Marion: yours is out and with a friend on the right

This snow bridge is ready to fall

And yes that standard old shot from the bridge

Sorry guys, I forgot to get some shots of the main range where I'm sure many of you are wondering how it has faired after all the rain this past week.

The word I heard today is that Kosi chair may not be opening this weekend :-(

The Grump: It's probably been a while since I had a grump. I discovered today that some wise-*#!$ had turned off the heater in our boot room. It didn't affect me, as unlike most I have access to another heated boot room, but it shows how much some people still do not understand what Thredbo is about. It's not always skiing but bush walking, fishing, mountain biking and other activities that can all result in very wet, muddy shoes and damp clothes all of which one would prefer to have dry overnight. Who wants mountain bikers muddy gear dripping all night inside an apartment? The heater, when on, is set low and is thermostatically controlled and in hotter summer months just keeps the humidity at a level that prevents mould and rust and smelly shoes. It makes me wonder how such ignorant people get the honour to make such stupid decisions. I didn't know we had any politicians in our building ;-)