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.

Club Hocking Calendar updated for this winter's bookings.

DMs post below combined with the trail of man made on the Perisher Snowcam got my arse into gear and Club Hocking Calendar has been updated with the dates for this winter's bookings.

If everyone can use it to communicate with each other to organise visits so we don't have to organise everyone that would be really helpful. So please have another look at the Club Hocking Guidelines and help us out.

Looking forward to seeing you all this winter!

Plans for the opening weekend?

Are there any?

Rick and Veka, will you be in residence?

Who else is thinking of heading down?

New Snowcams

With the snow falling this morning I had a look and discovered a couple of new snowcams. One at the bottom of the ridge at PB.


The Basin cam at Thredbo has been moved to the bottom of the T-Bar.


I've added the Ridge Cam to the side bar, if there are any other cams people woould like to see on the sidebar yell out.

Hopefully I'll be able to get my first turns tomorrow morning!

Charlottes Pass Panorama

Went for a drive up the hill this morning to have a llok at the snow that feel earlier in the week. Here is a panorama from the top of the Snow Gum walk at CP.

World Record Cliff Jump an Accident!

Here are the words of Fred Syversen from this thread at the TGR forums.

Hehe,

Somebody told me about this discussion (could'nt read it trough, too much), and I like to add a few facts, the rest I will leave for the film and the pics. I can’t give you any proof, that’s not for me to decide.

My ski philosophy is that you should always stick your landings, that’s gonna progress our sport! Going this BIG we’ll leave to the BASE jumpers.

This was the warm up run at the beginning of the day during heli filming, and it turned out that I missed the end of my line with not to many meters (difficult routefinding cause of similar terrain features ). I let my skis go pretty much into the falline and picks up speed instantly, and just thereafter realises my fault and that I will go out something, probably huge.

The mind works amangsingly fast under stressed situations; breaking or trying to stop was no longer an option, it simply went to fast. If I had tried that I would’nt write this. So that left one choice; go for it, and do it right!

For a fraction of a second I thought this is it, but manages to get in a slight right turn to avoid the cliffs on my skiers left in the landing area. Then comes the take off at an amazing speed ( it felt like that ), I see snow underneath, and I decied that it’s not over yet.

In flight I tried to keep a position as long as I could, but airpressure finally pushes the skitips up and you end up in the backseat. That’s what I wanted as well, because landing it anything else than horisontally was out of the question!

I had an ABS avalanche back pack, and for those who know, it has a little metal/alumunium bottle ? near the lower back, not good if you land on your back. So I tilted my body slightly to the left before impact and that probably saved my spine.

I did’nt want this to come out, but with mobile pones around……

Nuit de la Glisse Films / Perfect Moment Clothing company, producer Thierry Donard
Photographer : Felix St. Clair Rénard
Measure of the jump 330 feet.

For the skiing watch Free Radicals : Rising and Snowblind and Nuit de la Glisse: Perfect Moment ”The Contact”.

And as far as I know; I am not 42 yet, but hope I will be.


Fred Syversen

And here are some images of the Jump.

From Above


Another Angle


For scale here is a photo of the bomb hole in the photo above.


I can't believe that he did that accidently.

Starting to organise a climbing get-together

Crystal Meet

more vids

Headed out backcountry with a guide for a day after we got some new snow. Was great... Went ice-climbing too, pics are on facebook.



Descending from Col De La Leisse


Continued descent from Col De La Leisse

I wish that I was as smooth turning as Yannick, our guide... I did some good turns, but a number of head plants. I looked like a frosted topping thing by the bottom...

Yay! I'm skiing again...

The same Genepy run as in a previous video, but just off-piste and after new snow.


The run down into the stadium.

how's the technique looking?

Been skiing a mix of on- and off- piste. Lots of snow forecast for tonight and tomorrow, so hopefully it won't be cut up crud off-piste.

Looking at doing some tours next week.

Genepy run.

Double M run.

Grattalu run.

Let's see what's on offer in France

OK, so the days have been ticking down, and tomorrow it's time to hop on a long plane ride to some mountains that actually have snow. The Blueys have been raining solidly for the past month, and to be honest I'm looking forward to some decent skiing.

http://www.snow-forecast.com/resorts/Tignes/3day/mid
http://www.tignes.net/GB_webcams.html
http://www.tignes.net/GB_plan-pistes.html

Hopefully web access and updates to follow...