Queuing For First Chair

Another fantastic spring day in Thredbo. The temperature had gone sub zero overnight and the pre dawn fog still had moonlight shining through. A pleasant breeze from the north east meant cooling on the way up.

Knowing that the best skiing would be on the early snow we arrived at the base of Snowgums chairlift before 9:00am only to find a queue waiting for first chair. It felt just like winter ;-)

Almost all our Friday tracks were gone - washed away by the rain late on Friday - but this revealed my tracks from 2 weeks ago.

The skiing was faster than on Friday - well, we were back on brown snow but even the white patches were faster as well. I had to rebuild the staircase and it got interesting in places where my boot went straight through the base. It's getting decidedly thin on the hill.

Coffee & biscuits provided some rest breaks between runs. I did two on the North Face. The thought of walking back around to the main staircase was dismissed by setting a much shorter and steeper stairway straight back up the North Face - 350 steps, many of which I had to kick in 3 times on the steepest sections to prevent sliding back down the slope.

The skiing was just as good as 2 weeks ago but sad to say there's not going to be much more, unless ... we have another of those global warming dumps ;-) But I don't see that coming in the immediate future.

Looking back over the Main Face to Eagles Nest

The transition from brown to white snow was hardly noticable

The repeat climbs up were a work out

I boot packed back up the North Face after each run

There must be a path through the rocks

Yes, see I told you so

The Main Face
I need to practice doing 8's through the gaps in the rocks

Looking back from the bridge

All in all, great weight-bearing exercise going up with an enjoyable reward coming back down. What a super way to exercise.

Today made my 80th day on snow in Australia this year. Still more than 40 less than last year. C'est la vie.