Hotham 10 – Day 6 – Snow galore
Hotham 10 – Day 6 – Snow galore
Michelle, Bronte and Emma on Wendix
Today we woke to find (as reported) 24cm of new snow on the ground, meaning everything had a nice white covering that had been sorely missed over the last few days. Again, the keenest of skiers were out as soon as the lifts opened (8:30am because of the lack of snow), while the remaining members of the household (including myself) took a little longer to get moving. It was still snowing lightly periodically, and was set to continue for most of the morning. According to the reports, however, the new snow hadn’t lead to any new runs or lifts being opened, it really just made skiing on those already open a whole deal better.
Luckily today the wind was at an absolute minimum, so the falling snow was nice and light – unlike previous days where it had been a relatively painful affair. By the time the majority were out on the slopes it was mid-morning, but the conditions were the best we’d seen all week, with all runs covered by a nice few centimetres of fresh snow. We explored all of the open mountain yet again, but were happy to get up both the Roadrunner and Summit chairs that had been closed for most of the week. Although we had been pretty good with sticking to the open runs only until this point (for fear of breaking a leg, for example, on a huge exposed rock), today we decided to ski Wendix, a run we had seen from the Roadrunner which appeared to be covered in a particularly deep layer of powder.
The Summit
The run itself was good, although the thick snow was challenging for some, however at the end of the run we encountered a significant multi-metre drop which was (potentially) one of the reasons the run was closed in the first place. Michelle, David, Ed, Emma and Bronte all removed their skis and slid down the embankment, however I decided to take a more adventurous route down and leaped off on to the trail below. Everyone survived with no injuries, although some were keen to avoid skiing this run again during the remainder of the day!
Lunch was back at the house (after we’d skied a few more runs around Heavenly Valley), however due to the favourable conditions outside, we spent the shortest amount of time indoors today. We hit the slopes again to make the most of the good (well, considerably better) snow and good weather, and spent more time skiing those runs we had already skied today (with the exception of Wendix). Ed and I ventured on to The Cornice, which was closed, but it proved to be enjoyable skiing nonetheless. We stayed out until Ski Patrol began closing off runs (it was 4:30pm), then made our way back to the house.
The view from lunch. Nice!
Tonight’s entertainment involved some shopping, a quick drink at Zirky’s, a screening of Alice in Wonderland for the kids, some Trivial Pursuit, some assorted TV viewing, and a little suitcase packing. Tomorrow is our last day here in the snow, and we head back down the mountain tomorrow afternoon. It’s crazy that the week has come to an end so fast, that the snow has been so variable, and that we all have to head back to work next week (where there’s no snow)…
Take a look at today’s photos here – there are some great ones from our little adventure down Wendix!
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