2 Weeks Later And Another Month On

It's December and the sun is shining, the sky is blue and the forecast max up top is 16C. What to do?

Marion and I packed morning coffee and biscuits, a gourmet lunch of pate, smoked salmon, avocado, fresh bread, some blush champers and other bits and went skiing of course.

Why? If the above is not enough reason then it must be that with global warming destroying our planet and way of life there's not much left to do.

Yesterday under similar weather conditions we went on a short scouting trip to see what was beyond Eagles Nest. Yes, the Kosi chair is open again - yee haa. As one would expect, a lot of snow pack has melted away over the past two weeks since our last ski. We could see that there was indeed enough snow to enjoy some "up and down" exercise on both Summer Drift and Signature Hill despite some sudden stops at the bottom of some lines.

Marion's call was for the Drift and so it came to be that this morning we hauled all our eating and drinking essentials to a suitable place on the snow.

There was a cooling breeze keeping things bearable. I wore my shell up and down the chair but stowed it for the rest of the day. We went up and we went down. We took turns at 8's, parallel lines and mirror turns. The snow quality is still good for spring skiing.

We had only completed our second run when Steve and Annette arrived with their teles. They too are regulars out back and thought the same as us, that there was enough snow to still get in some turns and with such beautiful weather it just had to be done.

View from the bridge on yesterday's scouting trip

It's big and it's blue - it's a cross over for the flow track

With the crows circling over head, Marion thinks about lunch

Steve and Annette on teles

We worked hard to build up an appetite

Marion laid out lunch on an 80 year old lace table cloth

Lunch for us - not the flies.
The small bush flies are out in force

Our last turns were on the steepest pitch of Summer Drift

The top of our play field and the bottom where all tracks met

And the middle bit. I didn't count how many turns top to bottom
but there were plenty, with 415 steps up

 

 

If you had told me 2 months ago that I would still be skiing in December I would have laughed at you.

I'm not sure what the coming days will bring. Currently there is snow forecast for Thursday/Friday. MountainWatch in there enthusiastic way are predicting (as at 3:40pm today) some 20cms. I suspect somewhat less but in these dire days of global warming, we'll take what we can get. There's a BIG mountain bike event on next weekend - The cannOnball MTB Festival - and based on my mate Murphy's law, anything could happen.

The down-hillers (those on mountain bikes that is) are having a great time on both the extreme and intermediate flow courses with some doing some serious speeds while some less fortunate hobble out of Doc Michael's in bandages and worse. There are several advanced jumps on the mountainside with big air a popular option. Great spectating opportunities too.