I have just had a very sun-soaked trip out on the main range for a few nights. By request here are some piccies. Hopefully this is not too monotonous for some - very similar shots were posted just last week.... The plan was to set out on Sunday, but it was a mix of rain and snow and very windy, and both myself and my ski buddy were miserable with a nasty cold. We had a short trundle up farm creek instead that day and ended up wandering into Blue Cow terminal and having an unplanned nap by the fire. It got colder overnight and we were greeted by about 3cm of dry snow down at Island bend in the morning: This meant packing up a wet snowy tent... The day was actually sunny but quite cold and still a bit too windy for us to be tempted to establish camp over the top of the range, especially given the ongoing misery of our colds. We decided on a trasitional camp spot at the treeline in Twynam creek. Here's the camp, complete with minimilast (but quite functional thanks) kitchen: The next day we went up to have a look at the Crags. My friend is not up to skiing such steep terrain, and the surface was still frozen solid, so we decided to just look and then skiied some easier slopes down to blue lake instead. The cornice over the blue lake chutes was pretty impressive. We nearly had a mishap here as i had seen it upon approach and stayed appropriately back from the edge while finding a safe vantage point. Sarah kept coming and as I told her to stop replied "Its no use talking while I am still moving cos I cant hear you, wait till I get there". I had to make it clear that she needed to stop NOW - or she would either collape the thing and fall, of ski off the edge and fall...
The next day we skiied over to Carruthers, again just looking (rather longingly actually) at the really steep stuff, but actually skiing some mellower slopes off Carruthers back towards Blue lake. The surface remained frozen solid above 2000m , but softened very nicely inded in the sun below that elevation providing some very nice spring conditions! We had been too lazy to move camp, so kept coming back to Twynam creek each evening - heres our view of the sky over Guthega which we cooked dinner to:
3 more. My first go at photo-stitching, and honestly its too damn late at night right now to fiddle to get it right.
the cover up high is fine, in fact it remained frozen solid above 2000m all week, so little loss due to thawing despite the fine weather. At our camp at 1800m there was significant thawing, with the tent needing daily re-pegging. The lower elevations lost heaps - the ski from Illawong back to Guthega involved some shrub skiing, and will be a hike very soon. On the way in we skiied right to and from the flying fox, coming home the short steep hill down to the flying fox had no cover from about 1/2 way down...
nice report, great pics. If you want me to stich the pics I'm more than happy to. Just send them over to par_whore(at)hotmail(dot) com Simon.
very nice, no monotony in relooking at the Western Faces; special every time! My tip for photostitching lies with how you take the shots, and also depends on features which you may or may not have on your camera: firstly and most importantly, set the white balance acording to the conditions, not on auto. secondly, if you have an exposure lock feature, use it for the series. If you can do both of these things, the diagonal lines between frames will essentially disappear, and will save a lot of photoshopping to get a good final result.
TF, great shots mate! Bummer about the ice - we were there only the week before you and got some awesome snow, both southern face of the sentinel and the nth side of the crags you see in your 3rd piccy. Still, you had some great weather, and you can't complain about that! That sunset sky colour over Guthega is magic.
'Nuther nice dusk pic of main Range looking back from last slopes up to Guthega carpark after flying fox. Late trip out from Blue Lake.
Nice pic PaulM An observation re current snow conditions - the hill in the foreground of Pauls pic above looked like that on the way out at the beginning of last week, now its shrubs to 2/3 of the way up, and patchy above that...
Yeah - the Ice thing was a bit of a Bummer. It was softening below 2000m though and we did get some nice skiing in on the more mellow terrain behind blue lake. Realistically though Sarah doesnt have the experience to be safe on the really steep terrain anyway, so skiing the western faces was never on the agenda for this trip. It would have been even more frustrating to not ski it if I had been there when the surface was favourable. At least this way there was no real temptation to give it a go...
Great work TF, although you could have put more effort into the kitchen. hope you said hi to sarah for steve and i.
another tip I've recently got about stitching (but haven't tried yet) is to bracket shots with a range of white balance. The fellow that demonstrated this to me showed how this resulted in getting a choice of stiches from the resulting mix and match exercise.
Of course I said Hi from you two. The Kitchen was just fine thanks. What more do you need than a comfy seat for two, a wind break behind, and a spot for the stove (also strategically out of the wind). The view across the snow valley to the Perisher range and paralyser was very nice too... It was actually plenty of effort as it was - the rain crust was so solid when we were setting up camp that the snow shovel wouldnt dent it. Had to punch through with the snow saw and cut blocks out of it, and even that was tough. Once down 15cm or so it was easier digging...
I found a pic of what the snow surface was like. It was actually from last years trip, but the surface out there was pretty much identical this year....
Mate - that surface went all the way from the twynam/little twynam saddle to the summit of Carruthers and beyond...
Yep. Large Calibre bullet proof. Only above 2000m though, below that was solid till about 10am, then corn snow till the 3pm freeze up occurred again.
They would be useful, yes. Alas i dont have em. I used to laugh at those BD poles with the mini ice axes on top, after a few slips crossing side slopes I can see their applicaion clearly now....
I've got some ski 'pons but haven't used yet. Looks I would have there. Issue would be same as normal crampons. Don't wait until you really need them to fit them because by then you wan't be able to stop and put them on! You can get the BD Whippets as retrofits now... And I think Grivel are making some that clip on to other poles too. Paul
nice one Tele fred good camping spot - looks like you were close to my spot near twynam creek from 2 weeks ago - you didn't see the remains of a snowcave and kitchen up there did you?
Canon A95 has a setting for taking panoramas. Locks everything and shows overlap on LCD. Neat, and Canon PhotoStitch works wonders on the results.
Mein gott! You would be staying away from Watson's Creek and any of the steeper runs!! Did it soften later?
The top of the range stayed like that all week, Fortunately the gradients on top are not too extreme. The slopes below 2000m softened nicely, especially the ones facing the sun.
