Snow!

So very (VERY) early Wednesday morning I pointed my car in the general direction of the Southern Cross (which was still visible in the predawn light, even with the full moon blazing) and headed for the snow. After stopping at Maccas in Cooma for brekky (two hash browns and a bacon and egg mcmuffin) and at Rebel in Jindabyne to hire some ski gear, I caught the 8:40 ski tube from Bullocks Flat and was on the slopes by 9am.

View from Blue Cow terminal

I did a couple of small runs at Blue Cow to get the hang of the skiing thing again. It was still a bit icy, but the sun was shining and the sky was an amazing blue.

Blue Cow terminal

Then wandered over to Pleasant Valley which is probably my favourite area in the whole place. Nice gentle slopes and very few bumps, so I could go fast without feeling like I could get out of control.

Pleasant Valley skiier

Top of Pleasant Valley

So did a few runs there and then headed over to Guthega for a bit.

Road to Guthega

Ended up on the middle traverse by mistake, which has a few "ups" in it. When I got to the second major up, I thought this is silly, and took the alternative route - down Schnaxl, a double blue run. Noone had used the run all morning and it was very steep and icy, but wide enough for me to zig zag down it without too much trouble. Did a few more runs at Guthega before heading back.

Norweigan Trail at the very back of Guthega, very pretty, and almost deserted

Someone said this was Mt Kosciuszko

Most difficult!  This would have been The Screw

Did another couple of runs through Pleasant Valley and then down Copperhead Road and across to Interceptor (noone there!)

Valley from Interceptor

Interceptor skiier

Went down Discovery Trails and then headed across to Smiggins. Quite enjoyed Smiggins. Did quite a few runs there, and met up with some school teachers from Bega who'd brought their year 3 and 4 kids on excursion. Did a few runs with them before they quit for the day.

Smiggins

Then I wandered back to Perisher, across Front Valley and up Forester. Down through Happy Valley and up Mt Perisher.

Top of Mt Perisher

At this point it was 3pm and I was starting to feel very tired. I had some cheese and chocolate, rang Stu, and thought of my plan for the rest of the afternoon. However, getting down off Mt Perisher in my exhausted state proved difficult, and when I got to Pleasant Valley the snow was very heavy and slushy. Had a third and final stack where my ski got buried so deep in the snow I had to take it off just to get it out. So thought I'd make my way back to Front Valley and go home. Except at the top of the hill I could see my destination but it felt too hard to get there. I made my way very slowly down. Half way down a very kind lady offered to lead me down, which was lovely of her. Just following someone gave me the motivation to keep going and not stop every few metres. So then I got back on the ski tube and came home.

It was crazy hot weather. The beanie never made it on my head, and my gloves came off mid morning. I had two of my sloppy-joe jumpers on and a gore tex jacket, and was wishing I'd only worn one jumper!

Food of the day was maccas for breakfast and dinner, with mini cheeses and mini boost bars for continuous energy.

The drive down was quite peaceful. Got to see the very full moon set. I was a bit tired for the drive back, but got to see the golden moon rise again. A coach was on my tail out of Cooma, so I let it pass and then sat on its tail for the entire trip back to Canberra (it was doing exactly 100 and it's much nicer to be following someone at night than be leading). Oddly, the radio had "Can't Fight the Moonlight" on the way down, and "Dancing in the Moonlight" on the way back :) Four dead wombats and a few dead kangaroos which was quite sad. Never seen that many wombats hit, usually it's just the roos.

After two days, it's really my shoulders that suffered the most pain. All that silly traversing nonsense. Legs hardly suffered at all. Silly really :)