Hotham 09 – Day 2 – Wild weather, big bad organisations, and some skiing

Note: this is the second time I’ve written this post, so this is the somewhat abridged (and possibly slightly more negative) version. Thanks a lot Apple Mail and Gmail – you guys work great together. Not.

Day 2 started at a more reasonable hour – 7:00am wake-up for most of us, although Ed had been up since 4:30am surfing the internet. We all got up relatively quickly, had a nice shower in the ever-cold bathrooms of the motel, and were ready for breakfast at 8am. Not before Ed had waved (although nobody noticed this) to the passing bus carrying Nat, Tess and Astrid which would beat us up the mountain by 3 hours – after leaving a good 14 hours later than we did.

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Breakfast was, as always, at the Bright Bakery. The bakery was abnormally busy due to a large school group from Victor Harbour choosing to stop here as well. Ed orded his food and decided to sit outside – where there were plenty of chairs – and soaked up the steady rain. We, on the other hand, waited the 5 minutes it took for the school group to leave, and sat inside. Ed soon joined us, and we departed just before 8:45am – not before we received a live report of the weather from the advanced party: “atrocious” is the word I believe was used. Wind, fog, and rain. What a nice combo! Ed, Pip, Nick and I had to stop past the ski shop to collect our recently waxed gear, but soon after this we headed for the mountain.

The rain continued for a fair portion of the 90km drive to the top, and the low-lying fog set in at the town of Smoko – a few kilometres before the uphill section of road began. The weather worsened as we climbed higher, but at least the temperature started dropping. It reached 5C by the time we arrived at the park entrance, but unfortunately this was considerably too warm for the precipitation to be falling as snow. There were traces of snow on the ground, but nothing like the snow-covered sights we had seen on past occasions. After trying (note the word trying) to get an entrance discount because of the bad weather, we headed towards the top of the hill – another 15km past this point into pure whiteness… the sky that is. We didn’t realise we had reached the top until we were half-way through the Sun Run tunnel – something we hadn’t witnessed in many recent years.

Upon arriving, we learnt that the advanced party had managed to get into the accommodation very early, and so we went directly to unload our gear. This process was considerably easier than on previous occasions, bypassing the 100m uphill hike to Lawlers and simply requiring a small transfer along a walkway to the front door. The accommodation was nice, but the four flights of stairs between the levels made for hard work moving bags and gear around. We quickly finished and settled in, having lunch and snacks before taking a walk to work out how many walkways we’d have to duck under to be able to ski straight out of the side door. We watched the wild weather for a while, then headed to Hotham Central to organise lift passes, and ski hire for those who needed it. We managed to get our multi-day lift passes as it was after 1pm.

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This is where our so-far pleasant Hotham experience ended (although we hadn’t had much contact with staff to this point). Astrid had booked her gear online, on the Hotham website, as they suggested to “save time” and get you on the slopes faster. Upon arriving at the hire shop, we were met with a huge line of school kids – they were expecting about 800 during the day, but it looked like a whole wad of them had arrived at once. We waited in this line for a while before deciding to bypass the line and go straight to the first set of counters. John and Max filled out the required paperwork (they hadn’t booked online), and we stood at the counters attempting to get served for the next 20 minutes. Unfortunately, nobody was wanting to do so, and a Hotham staff member who didn’t work at the rental store actually tried to convince us to hire from somewhere else – not a great business strategy last time I checked. We finally got served by skipping these counters and moving directly to the boot department, where after trying on three pairs of boots (everybody’s first two sets were broken – great), the three musketeers were ready for skis. At this point, we thought we should check with one of the idle staff members (trying to look busy) whether we needed to be entered into the system. Yes was the answer, but she didn’t appear to be in a position to assist us. After much annoyance, she finally did, and entered both John and Max into the system. Astrid’s was supposed to be easy, as she had preregistered and organised her gear (something that required registering on the site, filling out lots of questions, and printing out confirmation letters). Unfortunately, it wasn’t.

Astrid wasn’t in the printed file of all of the registrations, but not to worry, as one would assume something completed online would instantly appear in their databases – no luck here either of course. As a result, she had to complete another form manually, wasting yet more time. At this point, I decided Hotham Customer Services deserved a serve, and took my complaint there. They were as helpful as they could be, but it was the Hotham rental manager who made matters worse. He was more interested in handing out ski jackets and pants to school kids (as they were seriously understaffed) than taking any notice of our problem, and when he finally did take notice, simply played it down as not being a problem. He had no trouble finding Astrid in the system because she had now filled out another form and had been reentered manually – but still had no explanation for why or how the online process had screwed up so badly. Who knows how many other people have suffered the same waste of time, only so that Hotham can post them promotional material.

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Upon returning to Astrid, who was now at the front of the line at the ski counter, the assistant proceeded to ask her what size skis she wanted. “Um…. ones that are the right size?!” was a close enough representation of what was said. The staff member then tried to scan the skis and her barcode to record the hire, but couldn’t find Astrid in the system at all…. again. For the third time, Astrid had to be reentered into the database, but still the manager did not care. I can see why the Hotham woman at the beginning of this process tried to convince us to go somewhere else. We moved to the cashier where Astrid paid for the equipment, and attempted to organise a lift ticket – only to be told she couldn’t do so until 3pm. It was 2:30pm at the time, but this wasn’t close enough for the staff member. Astrid decided to go shopping instead while the rest of us hit the slopes.

Pip, John and I had a few runs before catching up with Bronte, Ed, Michelle and David at the base of Heavenly Valley. The snow was a little damaged from the weather during the day, but it was certainly better than dirt skiing. John and I skied a few more runs here while the others explored another of the few open areas on the mountain. We called it a day around 4:20pm, but not before being yelled at by a ski patroller who had just roped off the Basin, and placed a sign stating “All runs below this point closed. Access to accommodation only”. Well, duh. Where do you think we’re going?

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We returned to the chalet and were welcomed with snacks a plenty. Unfortunately our relatively positive runs of the afternoon were ruined by Unley Sport for All who decided they would reinstate an $80 forfeit fee for tonight’s basketball game that they had previously (when we arranged it a month ago) decided to waive. I won’t tell you the details, but we shan’t be giving them any more of our money in future, and have devised an excellent way to deliver the $80 – more on this on another occasion.

Astrid was one of the last to return, as she had been left by all of her skiing buddies without even instructions as to how to remove the skis from her feet. Apart from the problems caused by these organisations who have grown too big for their own good and forgotten about the value of customers to their business model, the day was generally enjoyed by all. We are all hoping that the sleet which has continued for most of the day (and still continues now) turns to some massive flakes overnight, as a big dump is really what’s needed to bring the conditions back into line. Unfortunately the current surface has endured a week of sunshine and is wanting some TLC from Mother Nature.

I’ve uploaded the photos from the past few days at the gallery page, although yesterday’s pics aren’t particularly exciting I must admit.

And for something new: here’s today’s 30 second wrap.

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