Hotham 09 – Day 3 – Mountains of snow

We awoke on Day 3 to 20cm of fresh snow blanketing the resort – a nice change to the worsening conditions we had experienced the day before. It was still snowing as we were eating breakfast, but from inside the chalet the weather looked rather pleasant. It was a bit of a slow start for most, with the majority only hitting the slopes around 10am. Unfortunately the weather wasn’t quite as nice outside as it looked from inside, but a bit of complaining later and we were all over our problems.

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Tess, Ed and John took the side door of the apartment and lived the true “ski-out” lifestyle – although it was probably harder than something like this should have been. Luckily nobody got hit with falling snow from neighbouring roofs, but the thick new snow made turning hard and progress was slow. After the three finally made their way under the appropriate walkway, they headed out off to the Basin and started their day. The rest of us took a little longer to get out, but we soon made progress – only I was game enough to follow in their earlier tracks.

A couple runs on the Playground later, and we had convinced Kim that today was probably not the one to make her skiing comeback (after her full knee reconstruction a year or so ago). The wind was blowing an absolute gale, and unfortunately the sleet that was falling was doing so on a horizontal – not nice on the cheeks. Nick soon decided to head inside for some warmth, and the rest of us headed to the base of Heavenly Valley to meet up with Emma, Bronte, David, Ed and John. By the time we did meet with them, Bronte, David and Emma had skied back up to the Village, while Tess and Pip soon followed. I joined Ed and John and we skied a few runs here while the weather was reasonable – at least at the bottom.

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After a few runs, John and I decided to attempt a run we had picked out the day before – one that was off the map, and certainly not a marked trail. It was supposed to end on the trail returning from the extreme area, although we were really just hoping that it didn’t end in a cliff or straight into a creek. We set off, deep into the trees, and pushed through the thick powder making slow progress. I lead the way, and John followed closely behind. It was lucky there had been 20cm of new snow, as it would have been very bare the day before. It probably took us a good 30 minutes to get anywhere near the bottom, but the sound of running water wasn’t the most comforting thing. Luckily, from between the thick trees, a bridge appeared – unfortunately, it wasn’t the bridge I had planned on finding.

The bridge was mostly a platform extended over the river from the opposite side as a run-out for the ski run coming down the slope across the valley. Luckily, it extended to our side of the creek in two places – but only for a distance of a metre or two. This was certainly better than it not extending at all, and us having to hike along the bank of the creek until we found the bridge we were expecting. I headed out first and made the drop onto the bridge without an issue. Luckily, I kept my speed up and made it across a nice little drop that wasn’t obvious from the top, or even while moving along the bridge. After dropping off this ledge, looking back I noticed that the bridge actually was at a different level from the snow underneath, and that without some speed, it would have been pretty easy to slip backwards underneath it. I tried to yell instructions of the same sort back to John, and luckily he had enough speed to miss the gap but still scraped his skis on the metal frame on the way over. Have a look at some of the images in the Day 3 gallery.

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The trail out from this point was mostly flat, and by the time we had returned to the base of Heavenly Valley we were well and truly hot. We decided it was time for a break and some lunch, and so we returned to the apartment and met up with everyone else. Lunch was relaxing as we watched the still-wild weather outside, but it didn’t take long for most of us to return to the wilderness and ski a few more runs. We took Emma and Bronte on as many black runs as we could find, including the Canyon, Upper Imagine, Black Snake and so on; but everyone was soon out of energy and both wet and cold from earlier in the day.

We returned to the accommodation about 4:00pm and relaxed for the remainder of the evening. Some international visitors doing snow angels on the ground 4-floors below our apartment was too tempting however, and a well-placed snowball lob started a war of sorts. It only lasted a few minutes before they realised our height advantage was too hard to overcome. Unfortunately Pip was not well for most of the evening, while Max and Kim have mostly recovered from their illnesses.

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While the snow has been off and on all day, it has turned much icier now and is not falling as nice flakes. With any luck it will change back to some massive flakes overnight and delight us with 20 more centimetres to start Day 4. The weather looks to be improving as the week goes on, but they are still predicting some snow right through Wednesday. We are all praying and hoping that the Orchard and Blue Ribbon will open before the end of the week, but unfortunately we aren’t confident that this will happen, even if snow conditions improve enough. More than likely if it’s going to happen this week, it will probably be once the crowds flood back over the weekend. We can all hope, though!

Here’s today’s 30 second wrap (visit OnSno.com if it doesn’t appear):

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