Upper Vic River and Hotham Back bowls, Monday 20th August 2012

So if you own a diesel, never use "Torque Icebreaker". I usually use kerosene if I can't get to a servo with alpine diesel, but had been told by my mechanic that it was bad for the engine, so thought I'd try this useless additive resulting in a car that wouldn't start on a frosty Monday morning at Dinner Plain. The irony was that my plan for the day was to head out to Mt Freezeout. It was sunny and bound to warm up, so rather than call RACV I opted for plan B, which was a ski tour down to the upper Victoria River, which I had only previously visited with a fishing rod.

These barren alpine plains are the result of freezing air funnelling down from the surrounding hills into frosty sinks. Left of the river is freehold, and sunny side is crown land. From DP, you follow the groomed cross country trails for 2km until the waste water plant, skirt north towards the Alpine Way and ski down another 2km until the bend in the road, pass through a gate and then veer 1km south down a track. There was only a couple of inches of frozen snow, but a very heavy frost which seems fine for pattern bases - I'm often surprised by how little snow you need to tour, especially when everything not covered by snow is completely frozen. The plains were extraordinarily beautiful with the most exquisite ice formations over everything. I kept going downhill until I ran out of snow at around 1200m, and then bush walked for a bit and had breaky with views over Cobungra.

I returned to DP north of the road via the "Montane Track" which, whilst pretty, was never constructed with ski touring in mind. Back at DP, the car still hadn't thawed so I headed back out to the 'Room with a View' track for the amazing vistas of Feathertop. Then back after another hour and the car was still dead. Called RACV who said they'd be another hour, so headed back out along the Hotham track to see if I could get a glimpse of the Blue Rag south faces where we were supposed to be this weekend! Back at the car, it finally turned and was running before the friendly RACV man could arrive with his blowtorch.

Up on the mountain, I scouted a few places for fresh before discovering that the back bowls off the drift lift were still un-skied. The snow was awesome and so I farmed an entire bowl before heading back up to the summit and dropping down to the road and then over the road down the waterfall chute to the Diamantina in the sunset. The river had 2m drifts but few bridges, but eventually found my way out and back up to the Razorback and then the car at Loch CP which fortunately started first pop.    

Feathertop from 'Room with a View'

The Blue Rag Range

First line

Second

Third

And final...

Hotham summit

The other Big D

Mt Loch and Machinery spur, Sunday 19th August 2012

Sunday dawned with perfect skies and much enthusiasm, so headed out with Morry, Darbs and Charlie to Loch. There were kite boarders out past Orchard but few venturing any further afield. With sun, wind, cloud and variable temps, the snowpack was a little unpredictable, however we managed to find a few nice stashes up higher on the more southerly aspects. Considering how much snow had fallen, we were soon pleasantly surprised at just how solid everything was. We got great lines SE, E and NE off Loch, including a grand descent down the throat of the main Loch chute to 1500m which culminated in a hellish slog out through manky rotting thigh-deep snot. Then over to Machinery for a final couple of runs off the cornice, which was bombproof enough for a little air time! 

A great day out in the Oz side country!

Gentle bowl SE off Loch

Darbs on the east ridge off loch

Morry contemplating a technical skin out of a classic Loch terrain trap!

The long skin out...

Heading back up to Loch for more

Machinery Spur and Feather

Another skin out after a pleasant drop to the NE of loch

Bombing the Machinery cornice

Machinery tracks in the afternoon sun

Charlie finding good snow off the shoulder of Loch

Me heading down one of the Loch east spurs

Morry heading deep into the east Loch chute

The lads hit a gentler run after our last steep

Machinery after the cornice

After the storm... 18th August 2012

We had big plans for this weekend before nature stepped in with the storm of the season. To get where we planned heading we either needed no snow, or a slick track on the Dargo Road. But with snow down to Harrietville, the road had just opened and cars and chains were all over the road from the Meg onwards - and then a solid car park from Rene's onwards which looked like it might take the best part of the morning to unravel. I've always maintained that in moments like these, one's best friends are those with access to a private ski lift. Darbs was home at WSC, and together we skinned up St Bernard and successfully got the rope tow started without losing any fingers in the process. With only a few technical glitches (I soon got used to skiing with a wrench, nutcracker, spanner and screwdriver), it didn't take us too long to track out the mountain in good old Ozzie pow. 

But the bestest friends are those who understand that there might be drier snow up higher. So spent the rest of the day doing Golden Point loops with Buck, Rick, Rob and Bailey. The snow was awesome up high and pretty rotten down low, but all good when untracked! A good day washed down with some beers whilst watching crazies on skidoos. 

Darbs in knee deep at the Dargo turnoff

Skinning up to start the tow

Top unload

De-icing and safety check

Darbs on Wood Run

Mt Smythe down to the Ovens

A frozen Mt Freezeout

Buck in the trees down from Golden Point

Rick ripping it up before Collingwood's loss to the Roos

Before life on the spinal ward

Day Trip for some Blow, 13th August 2012

Darbs and I got a half dozen nice lines yesterday off Blowhard which has finally got a decent enough base on it, although still not up to usual. I was just up for the day and had to go through Wodonga for a meeting, which meant a 4am start and nearly a thousand clicks on the tachometer by the end of the day after another meeting in DP. The sun was out and the snow varied between slough, corn and scratch. Cloud came in around midday on Blowhard, however we noticed that Higgi seemed to be in continuous sun so we drove around and had a nice time through the glades on Women's Downhill, which was awesome despite having seen more traffic than I care to remember. People really need to start getting back en piste.

Walnuts and West Peak

Feathertop from Smoko

Darbs boot-packing out of WD

Looking across to next week's destination: Freezeout and Blue Rag

Blowhard this time last year

On Blowhard with fine spring corn

Darbs down one of the bottom gullies Blowhard

Me on far ridge, Blowhard

Bottom of Blowhard

Darbs in the Glades, Women's Downhill