Opening weekend for 2010

Who's in?

I'm getting excited about the prospect of a ski season with more than 2 days of skiing for me!

The doily skii's again!

My first ski of the season! New skating skis, boots, poles and my own crochet dress and pants!!!!!

I got some skis!

I'm joining in on with the Apline masters racers this season on my Tele gear. So I got a pair of stock race GS and SL skis for a grand total of $275. I've already sold the bindings for $100, so I got the skis for about $88 each. 

They're the beauties on the right. All I need to do now is remount them with some proper bindings.

From 2009-06-10

I went for a ski!

After some productive time doing Uni assignments I decided I deserved a ski and to check out just how much snow has fallen over the last 4 days. There was snow on ground at home and it had settled on the road just before the Pumping station. 

From 2009-06-10

I put on chains at Sawpit Creek and the road was constantly covered in snow after rennix gap. 

Uphill of Sponars

From 2009-06-10

From 2009-06-10

This next photo I had to include. Snow and ice on the road,... really?!?!?

From 2009-06-10

An indication of how deep it was

From 2009-06-10

On the hill I got in one quick run with only 4 others on snowboards. Then the V8 was shut for 10 minutes whilst they cleared some more snow.

The que that resulted

From 2009-06-10

From 2009-06-10

I spent the next hour getting fresh windblown snow by Mitchell T and skiing straight back onto the V8. There would have been about 30 other people riding the lift.

Some photos from the V8

From 2009-06-10

From 2009-06-10

From 2009-06-10

From 2009-06-10

From 2009-06-10

Stupid Word lost half an assingment, so I don't think I'll be heading up again tomorrow, but if you have the time come down this weekend, I recon the'll open all of the snowmade areas on Saturday. Waht a season starter.

Enquiring minds want to know!

What has the skiing been like on the opening weekend?

Brindabella Adventure

On Saturday 30 August I went up to the Brindies with a mate to see if we could reach the rapidly diminshing snow that had been teasing us from Canberra since July. As we thought there'd be a fair walk in, we also decided to pack the mountain bikes in to reduce the slog factor.

It turned out that it was only 4km to very solid snow on the road near Mt Ginini, so we threw the bikes into the bushes and got skiing. The old ski run on Mt Ginini had such good snow we decided the extra effort to get to Mt Gingera, our original goal, was not worth it. pics below

Snow on the road, looks good but a bugger to ride on, about 1k from were we changed to skiing

Mt Gingera (from Mt Ginini), ACT's 2nd highest. But the snow had really gone from its NE aspect

Me on theGinini ski run, looking back toward Canberra

heading back tothe Mt Franklin carpark, old ski runs of Mt Franklin visible in the background. Gotta get there in decent snow one day...

10th - 12th of August Report

What a weekend. Saturday night we had 9 people in the house and a pretty good party, except for poor Sid who bailed on monday morning due to the flu. My mardigras skate boots perform excellently and I am now the proud owner of a skating set up, prolly about time since I'm going for my Level 2 nordic certification this year.

Sunday was reported to be a great day, especially in the afternoon. But Monday was amazing, 20cm of fresh, blue sky and 120mm underfoot skis. I borrowed Carls DPS Lotus 120s and they were a revalation, I've been having that a lot with gear of late. Once I started to drive those skis they performed fantastically in the chopped up fresh and smearing is a whole new world. One run at Eyre I would straightline, then smear sideways to scub off speed, getting a face shot, before straightlining again. Marvin fell more in love with with his AK Rockets and Carl did amasingly well on his new touring boots in challenging conditions.

I had too much fun for taking photos.

Sid at Falls

I went off to Falls Ck from 3-8 Aug, staying in a club lodge courtesy of a mate of mine who's a member there. A lot to be said for ski-in ski-out accomodation. I did a couple of days on the hill, enjoying some fresh snow (and crud) and very good groomed runs, some gentle bc just out of the resort area, and a bit of skating to top it off. Snow was deep, dry and held up well all week. A couple of photos from the phone camera below.

Wallaces Hut - a feature on the xc course used for the Hoppet

A nice hill just outside the resort - when riding the lifts on subsequent days it was nice to see our own ski tracks

An attempt at an arty shot on the somewhat foggy bc day

27th to 30th

On Sat Marvin, DM Lefty Gray and others came up and had great times. Marvins AK Rockets are fast, fast, very fun skis. I enacted technicians title upon DMs 190 Goats and had a ball. Whilst I did level 2 stuff on Sat the others had a good time and Sid came down and had a ski with Marvin that morning. On Monday morning Marvin and I had a fantastic time. We spent the morning at Guthega in 10 - 20cm deep super dry snow. With the power of his AK rockets and me on DMs 190 Goats we were able to track out Parachute before anyone else got on it. By that stage we were both pretty buggered but managed one last run down through the parachute trees.

As I side note with free pivot you can also kick and glide 190 Goats!

A report with Pics of Monday will be up soon.

Great Skiing over the weekend and Telemark Phat is Liveish

The weekend polished off a week of training little interschools kids. It was tough on my paunch but it was great to see them race after putting a lot of effot into them. Sid and Hermi both got in some great turns, especially Sid who got to enjoy the freshies on Friday and Saturday.

On Monday Marvin and I went for a stroll up Tate East. It was a great day and free pivot rules.


Tate East Ridge from the Guthega Car Park.

There is a full report over at the liveish www.telemarkphat.org. If any of you guys have anything to contribute to www.telemarkphat.org let me know.

It is dumping like mad!!!!

I just got home from the hill at 8:00pm. Graham and I skied FV between 5:00pm & 6:30. It was boot deep and after each run our tracks were gone! There was snow on the road almost all the way back down. Snow was setteling on the road above Tyrolean Village and my driveway was icey.
It is on tomorrow. Hermi Sack Up you Sook! If you've been waiting for the snow to get good before you come down,... it will be good tomorrow.
Here is a bad pic of what I found when I got home.

New Terrain is Open

Went up for a ski this morning, sadly without my camera. All of front valley is skiable,.... just, there is still some grass sticking out of the snow here and there, but it has made a lot more room on the slopes for the first two hours of the day.

The snow making was still going when we left at 10:30. Hopefully with a nice cold night they will be able to get all of Front Valley groomed for tomorrow morning. If we are lucky the quad could be open at mid station on Sunday.

Hydrophylica and I had a ball since we could finally let the skis run with a bit of room on the hill.

New terrain open!!!!!

Wow, due to amazing conditions, PB have been able to open two lifts over at Blue Cow (early starter and pony ride- that's right, ride that pony)

Well at least it means that there's a little more variety.....

I'm ready for the season!

Well I've just finished my final piece of assesment for the semester, now I can enjoy the snow! If we only get some snow.

Opening Weekend Report

This years opening weekend was pretty quiet, only Sid and Hermi came down. But Graham (Nick to be decided) also participated in Opening Apeasement. Sid and Hermi got turns on Sat and Sun, Hydrophylica and I joined them on Sunday morning.

Front Valey only had the Magic Carpet and Mitchel T open to tower 3. So not much snow but for first turns of the season a deceptively large amount of fun.

The big news of the weekend though is the bargains at the ski swap. Hermi got a beanie and some shell pants, I bought a pair of Armada Pipe cleaners for DM (right), but Marvin and I got the cool scores. Marvin got a pair of 203cm Fischer RC4 DH womens downhill skis for $25 (centre) and I got a pair of 207 Elan SGX Super Giant Slalom Skis for $25 too! Both Marivn and I are very afraid of our new skis, but it will be fun!

Another New Snowcam

PB Have Just put up a Guthega Snowcam. Hopefully it will have good views of Twynam to give us an idea of main range conditions. We'll have to wait untill the weather fines up first.