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.

Montane Fens

A nice full day of drivin, skiin, fishin, bikin and hikin.
It was altogether a very strange weather system, not only for May, and I’d packed/unpacked/repacked a half dozen times over the weekend, originally considering longer drives w overnight camping options. But in the end just a long daytrip, but with LOTS of gear in the boot covering every base.
Early rise and a dozen runs at BB before i got too soaked and the snow turned mooshy. Usual BB magical rime kingdom, with the beech forests down lower also very pretty.

The Montane Fens has to be one of Victoria’s hidden treasures. Amazing it only recently got protected from logging, and also amazing I’ve never been there despite it having been on my radar most my life. They’ve properly gated it off now at the start of Newlands road with an extensive list of stuff you’re not allowed to do there any more. But despite perusing this list a couple of times, I could find no mention of mountain bikes, XC skis or fishing.
Unfortunately I’d packed my wife’s XC shoes, so the XC skis didn’t make the journey from the Fens, all the way up to Frangipani Saddle. Just as well as there were too many overhanging snow laden branches.
I caught and released a couple of very nice brownies along the way. The Thompson which makes up the Fens, is even more beautiful upstream with extensive beech and myrtle forests, all very pretty under snow.
At Frangipani, I decided to ditch the bike and climb up to Mt Whitelaw, up thé Upper Yarra walking trail through the most amazing forest of regnans.
Just before the AAWT, the snow got hard going and the trail hard to follow in the rain and mist so I turned back and retraced my steps to the bike.
Would otherwise be a good car pool trip to BB.
The Whippet pack is not mud proof.

 

Western Arthurs Traverse A to K. Day 5

We knew there was heavy rain and a cold front coming later in the day, and this was confirmed by the spectacular colours in the sunrise as we packed up camp very early to get up and over Scorpion and off the range.
Whilst it was almost 30km back to the car, it was mostly easy walking, which was possibly why Balti absently tripped on the shortcut section of Kappa Moraine and opened up his knee.
Fortunately it was the first time we’d had to delve into our medical kits, and we managed to clean things up and stem the bleeding without too much surgery. Pan was a huge help carrying his pack all the way back, and we even managed to keep the wound mud free. Unfortunately I’m pretty sure that this was also where I accidentally left my nice SLR camera, but hopefully someone finds it one day with an intact and dry memory card!
With the weather sombre, it felt surreal returning from Middle Earth, back to the gloom of ordinary earth.
As the first drops of rain arrived (and a helicopter rescue was underway for another party up on the range after another fall causing a broken arm), we made it back to the car mid afternoon, and were soon back on the road to Maydena for a shower, a beer, a steak, a fire, and a comfy mattress.
This was definitely the most beautiful hike or ski tour I’ve ever completed, up there with Antarctica in its effect on my spirit, and whilst it is also one of the hardest, I would do it again in a flash - especially if we could be guaranteed the same conditions. We count ourselves very lucky indeed, what a trip, what a place.

(Whilst the stars were amazing, the aurora and star shots were actually taken from the Prom the following weekend. Its still a top priority to get a Tassy aurora atop a snowy Tassy peak!)