The Cold White Fun Stuff

Going to the snow causes people to do extreme things. It might be the fact that it’s seasonal, making a snow trip an annual event. It could be the high cost of renting gear and accomodation on top of petrol and the on-snow premium that pushes you to make the most of it all. The excitement and anticipation of the snow “fix” also contributes to the madness of waking up at 4am on Friday morning, scoffing down breakfast, throwing everything in the car and heading South amidst heavy fog.

Out of the Stables…

One significant difference between this trip and all previous ones is that we stayed on snow this time. Sure, it’s a bit more expensive but being able to wake up in the morning, grab your gear and be in line for the first lifts of the day is fantastic.

We stayed at The Stables in the Perisher village. It was a very comfortable, fully self-contained unit that slept four. Being able to run away from the crowds at lunch and make our own lunch was great. There’s only so much overpriced pizza and kebab one can (afford to) eat. It also beats having to drive up from Jindabyne to catch the Ski Tube each morning as I’ve done in the past.

…And onto the snow

We managed to get on snow at 10:30am, after picking up our rental gear and checking in. We spent most of the first day finding out feet on the runs on Front Valley Perisher. It was a gorgeous blue sky day and there was still some cover from the snowfalls earier in the week.

Once Dave, J and Alex felt a bit more comfortable we headed up to the top of the Front Valley quad chair and did some of the easier runs down from there. The 4am start caught up with us by the end of the day and we slept very well.

We headed over to Blue Cow first thing on Saturday and caught some fantastic runs down “Zali’s”. Unfortunately, a lot of my favourite runs at Blue Cow (“Excelerator”, “Rollercoaster” and “Outer Limits”) were not open since the Ridge chair at Blue Cow was closed.

We eventually headed back over to Perisher by taking the Pleasant Valley Quad up to the top of Blue Cow and traversing over and down into Pretty Valley (who chooses these names? Mr & Mrs. Very Nice People?). We found some very good snow amongst the trees by staying high up on that run.

The Clouds Bringeth and the Wind Taketh Away

We were pretty hopeful about Sunday given the snowfall that started overnight and continued into the morning. Unfortunately, the wind that brought the snow in also blew most of it away, leaving a hard icy base to contend with and many lifts closed.

We were going to give up early but managed to find a couple of good runs amongst the trees again. Mt. Perisher also had some good patches down the Towers run but the at top of the lifts there was bitterly cold. The ice, wind and lack of visibility explained the “No Beginners, No Intermediates” sign at the bottom of the lifts. Dave, Alex and I did a few runs there anyway while J stayed at Front Valley.

At lunch, we decided to call it a day, packed up and headed out. Exhausted, but in a good way.