I must say that for me it is kind of like entertainment watching people with NO IDEA sliding off the roads in these sorts of conditions . It gets them out of the way for safer and more careful drivers to proceed with caution. As long as no one goes home in a box it isn't bad for a laugh ;-P.
Which part of "crawling down the hill in the lowest possible gear without applying the brakes " don't people comprehend?
Snow driving (and other types) involves skills that aren't tested for in Victorian licensing - can't speak about other states. So with drivers left to learn by trial and error it's no wonder there's errors.
Not entertaining when kneejerk requirements are enforced on the capable as a result of the actions the lowest common denominator.
I'm not talking specific skills, just commonsense. Slow down, slow down, be patient, don't overtake in stupid situations, don't be a hero. Plenty of examples of the 'experienced' not following these simple guidelines.
I heard somebody on a lift say it was heavy ....I loaded at 830 and had some awesome skiing before on snow guiding commitments at 10. My friend from Hakuba skied all day and said "belry goodo!". I had free ski run before heading home and still really nice in my books.
I wish I was in a position to make my own judgements My comment was based on quick conversation with neighbour
There's trial and error and there's no trying at all. For the bottom 10 ks today foIllowed a driver doing 30-40 kmh in this category. He was cautious by his lights and incompetent by those of the average drivers queued up behind him.
Coming up today we saw a lady driving a 4WD who had lost it and slipped into the high side table drain. The look of confusion on her face as the wheels were spinning uselessly made it look like she had no idea how she ended up there and was having that horrible "oh shit what do I do now" moment of panic. Edit: Oh and the snow conditions in the village are beautiful right now - looking forward to fighting with the wind tomorrow.
I have skied for many years on and off and I cant remember skiing better conditions that this. The first run down summit felt like I was floating through the snow. There were all sorts of excited noises coming from everyone as they came down the hill. It was mostly chopped up by 9:30am but we kept of searching for little stashes of powder for the rest of the morning. By OZ standards, the snow was quite light.
I punted this morning but the flat light was a spoiler for me. Off piste required steeper slopes to turn in the soft snow and not being able to see clearly was a knee hazard.
Well he didn't pull over, and in any case if you get a driver behind a Slug not willing to make a move then it's all over and that's what happened today too. We can talk about individuals needing to behave in this or that way, and good luck trying to get peeps to change their behaviour. IMO there's a mistaken public policy that licenses people to drive without requiring them to demonstrate the ability to cope with hazards that sooner or later they will encounter: going too hot into a bend, steering around a hazard, recovering from a slide, accurately judging vehicle width, and judging the distance needed for emergency braking (with a non-ABS vehicle if that's what they're going to drive).
Same goes for people just blatantly littering on the slopes, they just couldn't care less about anyone else but themselves.
First hour or so on the Summit was an absolute hoot this morning. Having driven the Falls Creek road since 1978 I can give some of my thoughts. The last 4 years I have driven an AWD without fitting chains on some very snowy roads and have some observations. Top speed on a snowy road is between 30 & 40 km/h and that doesn’t mean you must drive at top speed. Don’t accelerate quickly. Don’t brake hard. Anticipate corners and ease your car around. As a surfer and a skier I have learned never to underestimate Mother Nature. She will always come back and bite you hard. Always drive with end in mind - to arrive at your destination safely. The difference between a fast trip and a slow trip up the hill is something like 5 minutes. Having said that I wish slow drivers were more aware and respectful to others on the road.
Yep. That driver may have passed the licence test in a small sedan and it's legal for her to pilot a light truck in hazardous conditions. FWIW my hunch is that if you calculate the weight X tyre contact area of a medium or large 4WD the number will be higher than for a Subaru for example meaning it has less effective grip (all other things equal).
I'm all for interactive steering, if I grip the steering wheel really tightly, will the car hold the road any better?
A lot more snow around in places this year compared to the same time last year. 1) Trying to traverse from the top of Eagle over to Ruined and my ski poles on more than one occasion disappeared up to the handle 2) In the area between Ruined and Scotts - and due to a severe lack of ability in "powder" skiing - I went arse over tit and submarined a foot under the snow - took ten minutes to dig my way out (note: Ruined was turning but not a single person was going down any of the runs there????) 3) So many of the high timber fences on Scotts are buried to the top from snow drifts
My first BC tour out of Falls was about '91 or 92. The snow drift at the Windy Cnr end of the road was about 3m deep with a single lane cleared through it. Some poles in pole lines were almost buried.
Is there anyone around this Saturday that would be happy to show a visitor (ie me) around the hill ? I'm catching the early bus up from Mt Beauty for the day. Happy to ski most things so long as I can see where I'm going. I'm planning on starting on International once I get my pass sorted out.
'fraid I won't be up Saturday otherwise I'd be happy to. ............... The mountain was in fine fettle this morning. Seems though there was an incident on the road up? Someone fitting chains ended up under the vehicle.
Not nice. I saw that they closed the road but just assumed it was a slide. Hope the person is not too badly injured.
I wont be around but given the snowy and windy conditions there's a fair bet Scotts and Ruined Castle chairs will be closed. Depending on the situation relative to fresh snow you want arrive early and park at Gully carpark. Get the gully chair to the summit bowl then you have the choice of Summit or Eagle chairs if they're running to access the Y's as your first choice. Don't waste your time with the glory town lines under the lift... Y's or Cabbage patch are where it's at in fresh snow then make your way over to international ones it's tracked out... If Scotts is running then Corkscrew gully is great fun along with some of the lines down sun valley, however this can (likely) get badly wind scoured at the top which ain't much fun in a whiteout... Only thing worse than skiing a coral reef is skiing a coral reef when you can't see!
Rumour was they'd gone for a slide and ended up in a ditch, then tried to fit chains to get the traction to drive out.
Darkside (ungroomed area between Shadow Ridge and Lakeside could be good too . Also quartz ridge/rapunzels (ungroomed between Lakeside and towers) this gives you the option of using the poma, or even towers chair, if Scott chair is too horrible. Just need to make sure you head back to the lift in time
I heard a plausible explanation (reasonable source but not necessarily correct) about new eagle having so many problems. New fangled lifts have more sensors, and they all have to report goodness for the lift to run. The sensors mustn't like our wet, close to zero conditions and tend to ice up. Lift can't run till they are functioning again. Hopefully fcsl and poma will come up with a solution by next season. (Next week would be better) This still doesn't explain why other lifts open late so often
so why don't they roster staff to start de-icing earlier? This year seems to be much worse than other years.
Lovely weather today at Falls. Snow was v slightly crusty however unfortunately so not turnamatic off piste =it must have warmed up in the early hours.
