Top Through Fog To Bottom

A man-made cloud from snow guns totally obscured this morning's Top 2 Bottom course from anyone in Thredbo Village - as you will see in my detailed photos below. Sure, making snow is a very important part of trying to maintain the thin snow base BUT couldn't they have stopped for just a couple of hours?

With race weekend crowds in Thredbo, I decided to go west (actually north-west) and climbed into the main range as soon as the Basin and Karels T-bars were open. The piste, after much snow making, felt good but I wasn't confident in finding sweet untouched snow out back and my first climb backed this up with ice sections, some very firm packed snow, some sastrugi and heavy soft sections sometimes with a breakable crust. It was hard to visually pick the firm from the infirm. It was cold (wind chill -7C) with an unusual high overcast sky and a breeze only noticeable on the ridge lines. Due to the unexpected soft patches of snow, skins were paramount and unlike on past trips I didn't disrobe or boot pack anywhere.

I aborted my first back country run half way down and decided to skin higher and wider whilst letting the sun do its thing. The second run was better and the snow quality seemed to improve the lower I got. Had I made a bad choice going so high? Possibly but I'm not one to admit defeat ;-)

Instead of looking for extra turns I did some exploring, checking out the entrances to some steep chutes not that I was going to ski them in the current conditions. I climbed a peak I hadn't climbed before - nothing significant. I call it a "peak" because it was the highest point within a kilometre or so of itself.

From here I observed the world below on a sunny Saturday. Sometimes I think my iPod has formed a spiritual link through the wire into my head. I let my iPod play alphabetically by artist. Recently it was Santana, Sarah Blasko followed by Seal but today I climbed to Seals & Croft, skinned along the ridges to Sebastian Hardie, sat in contemplation to Shadofax and skied home to Sheryl Crow. I don't expect many of you to have heard of much of my eclectic range of music.

Here is a small selection of the 76 photos taken today:-

Top 2 Bottom - obscured by clouds (actually it's man made fog), unlike last year

Meadows snow depth

First run looked inviting but I aborted half way down to do another

Seaman's Hut with Club Lake Chutes behind
I spent much of my time exploring

I found nicer snow below Pyramid
and kept exploring

Cootapatamba Hut (a small red dot in the centre, by Leatherbarrel Creek)

South Ridge and cornice of Mt Kosciuszko

Two boarders hardly left a scratch on Cootapatamba Valley wall
That's them standing at the bottom

Meanwhile at the end of the South Ridge snow shoers met skiers
yes, it was Saturday

The weather can change quickly out here
time to go home - doubling up an earlier line

We are now into August and barring any late season miracles the season looks set to pull up lame before the finishing post. There are still numerous runs that have not seen a groomer this season and probably won't. The upper slopes (above Bunny Walk station) are holding out OK for the moment but lower slopes (except Friday Flat) are struggling to remain open.

Luckily the cold dry frosty nights of this week have enabled extensive snow making. Meanwhile out on the range the cover is marginally better than on my past two trips. I so hope I'm wrong about this and hope Howie does deliver a decent dump in the next few weeks - The Frog seems to think something good is on its way around late August. Will it be enough and not too late?

Happy Birthday Rosco!