Chez Craig

Yesterday was pretty spesh.
Probably the biggest day out I’ve ever done in Oz, and all just last minute when my work for the next day got cancelled (by Covid, yay!), after a very intriguing Monday June storm. It was hard to decide where to aim for, but Baw Baw didn’t seem to have copped it as much as Buller, and I didn’t want too much driving, and also presumed there’d be trees down and low snow on some of my other preferred access roads.
As I cut my sangas at 11pm Monday evening, I’d decided Stirling was the best bet.
After Lilydale at 0500 the next morning, the thermometer didn’t get above zero for the rest of the day. The dawn was very pretty, with snow on The Paps and Timbertop, and glimpses of Buller looking extraordinary through clouds. Whilst the road up Stirling was just passable (not exactly great value for my $65 entry fee), I was the only car in the park, and set off in a foot of fresh powder from the car boot, into an otherworldly mountain ash paradise.

 

Up higher, everything had been nuked by two feet of very cold Japanese like fluff that had fallen with little wind, and clung to everything.
You don’t often see it like this very often in Oz, and it made cutting a trail a chore at times.
Whilst there was the occasional glimmer of good light, things had closed in up on the Stirling trig, and with fresh blisters and a chronic strained Achilles, I had misgivings about pressing on all the way out to Craigs.

The downhill sections out to Craigs were a blast, with boot deep fresh, my vision and the trail episodically obscured by laden branches, rollovers, drifts and the occasional ditch, all on the fly.
On the final climb up to the Monument, I was rewarded for my efforts by increasing moments of sunshine, and Craigs Plain itself was then stunning in full sun.
I ate my sangas on the verandah of Craigs in very fine spirits, with a stunning vista of ever changing clouds and light.

It had taken 4 hours to get out to Craigs, and I had the same amount of skiing and climbing back to the car. The shortest day of the year was upon us, I didn’t have a torch, and wasn’t sure of my fitness.
So with that in mind, I didn’t party on at Craig’s for all that long.
However the long climbs back up to Stirling were at least made easier by my préexistant packed ski trail, and the shear gobsmacking beauty all around me.

With the sun still periodically making an appearance above the tree line, I decided to summit again, and then skied over to visit my favourite tree, and scope out Stanley’s Bowl, which was still a little rough for telemarking on shaky legs.
Fortunately I’d noticed that some good soul had passed by during the day with a groomer, and so decided it’d be in my best interest to follow such down Stirling Spur.

With a groomed trail, the long ski down was a hoot, with short little bursts of powder (and the occasional skate on rapidly tiring legs!).
Just as I descended back into the mountain ash and beech forest, I was joined by a very rowdy trio of yellow-tail black cockatoos. A shame that my tele lens is sitting somewhere on the Western Arthurs.
Anyway, what a day, very lucky indeed - if you got dished up a day’s ski tour like that on any other continent, you’d be pretty bloody stoked.