Skiing in Australia

[Toque]

Is that the Feral Kid I see next to the Kangaroo.

He'll take your head off if you go to fast

[Ski Beaver]

Again - for those who care this is how my 5th weekend this season will be spent;

Overall somewhere between 45 cm and 60cm of snow are expected. I have 6 and a half hours of work left and then I am off for a cold weekend.

A ridge of high pressure over southern Australia will bring dry, generally sunny
conditions to the region on Friday. Conditions will deteriorate rapidly during
Friday night, as a frontal system, currently in the Southern Ocean moves across
the region, bringing strong and gusty northwesterly winds and rain. Rain tending
to snow by Saturday morning as winds turn southerly behind the front and cold
low level air moves underneath the upper cloud band, bringing possible heavy
snowfalls and blizzard conditions. The high snow probabilities for Friday are
indicative of this time. During Saturday, snowfalls should tend to snow showers
in the colder air behind the front. Remaining windy. Isolated thunderstorms and
small hail are also expected as an upper level cold pool moves over the region,
bringing very unstable and cold conditions. Conditions moderating slightly on
Sunday, though cold southerly winds and scattered snow showers persisting.
Showers and snow showers contracting to the eastern regions on Monday as a high
ridges in from the west, and winds tend southeasterly with a low over the Tasman
Sea.

[Toque]

My brother is going skiing somewhere in Australia this weekend and I called him a jerk because of it.

So I am going to call you a jerk as well. JERK.

Get some for the rest of us JERK

[Ski Beaver]

2 and a half hours left for this Jerk.

I am going to Persisher Blue this weekend. Your brother may be going to Thredbo, or one of the Victorian resorts.

[Toque]

He is living in Canberra right now. Are there ski hills around there?

[Ski Beaver]

Yep, within 2 hours. He will probably be at Perisher tomorrow as well.

He should be able to find me, there will probably only be about 10 of us out tomorrow;

Tell him to look out for the orange jacket.

http://www.biglines.com/photos/blpic20077.jpg

http://www.biglines.com/photos/blpic20076.jpg

http://www.biglines.com/photos/blpic20073.jpg

http://www.biglines.com/photos/blpic20067.jpg

Shameless chance to post some photo's

[Ski Beaver]

Well Well Well.

Last weekend is going to the weekend by which all other weekends are judged.

I am going to be like my Dad in a few years and be going "well it wasn't as cold/windy/snowy/icy/facking wicked as the weekend we had in the middle of July in 2004!"

To start with I woke up on Saturday morning with the fattest fluffiest flakes falling lightly and settling on about 5cm of fresh snow outside the window in Jindabyne – It only snows down to this level maybe once a season.

Couldn't believe it!!!!!!

The skiing was pretty much 10cm of fresh on an icy base, you were always skiing the base but you could get shots of pow up into the inner leg on hard banked turns.

Met up with a mate for lunch and did some pretty sweet tree skiing off Parachute.

Was going up car park double late Saturday the wind was strong enough to be lifting kids off the ground. Itried to unload but my pass was caught on the chair and i ended up getting stuck and going round the chair and landing in the safety netting - it was wicked cool - I have always wondered what it would be like to land in one of those and have often thought about faking it and just bailing into one for fun. No need now.

That was pretty much Saturday, drove back into Jindy and the town was as white as you will see anywhere- think Whistler village, think Banff main Street.

Jindabyne became an urban jib fest on Saturday with park benches, rails and tables in the old town centre being used to launch off (I only watched).

Had fondue on Saturday night and quite a few beers, went to sleep bout midnight. We were staying with a mate in a ski shop in Jindy so our bedroom also doubled as a store room and my head was up against about 50 pairs of next years snowboards (Wild Duck) and skis from Switzerland (“Movement”) - does life get much better for the Beav!!

Sunday morning I was demoing a new brand of skis in Australia - Tropic Snow is the sole distributor for "Movement Skis" they are swiss free ride skis and I demoed the "thunder" model. For the tech heads amongst you the dimensions are 120-87-109 and I was on the 185cm. The V-Pros were being relegated for the day. The skis were pretty wicked, I could get them to snap and spring in short turns, at medium turns I couldn't really get them settled but at big high speed carving turns in a mix of pow, sheet ice and crud the things were unshakeable, smooth and I couldn't find their limit. They had a pretty soft tip but it didn't flap, but the tails were hard to medium. Overall I think I need to try them on steeper runs in more pow to get the best out of the 185cm because in Perisher Blue there just isn't that much steep fall line skiing to really use the extra float and the extra length. I still prefer my v-pros but they are a super sweet ski.

Sunday morning, all the snow that had fallen in jindy was now icy and rock hard and the radio reports had jindabyne poilce advising motorists to avoid driving unless absolutely necessary - 20cm of fresh snow is as much a necessity for me as sex and heroin are for a prostitiute!!!!!!!!! So we drove to bullocks flat, cars were being abandoned at the hill but the Subaru AWD Liberty went through even without fitting chains.

Snow was mixed on Sunday between deep wind pockets in Sun Valley at Perisher and the Parachute at Guthega. Our runs down to guthega road off skiers right on Parachute were probably the longest untracked fresh pow runs I have had in Oz, there was no icy base either as these runs face away from the prevailing wind.

Unfortunately I had to do an emergency stop to miss a tree, managed to stop but turned around and slid backwards into it, falling over and smashing my left thigh hard up against it. I got spun back around. My mate Marty yelled out and asked if I was ok, I said I was and then tried to get up but couldn't put any weight on it. I thought this was how a break feels. I tried to get up again and this time could stand. I moved it around a bit and managed to ski on it, by the time we reached the road I was peeling off big hard turns again and the pain was more dull throbbing pain. I iced it all last night and will wait for the bruise to come out - it should be a winner! I am limping like a lepper today. Not broken - luckily and didn't effect my skiing for the rest of the day.

We had heard on the radio that road between Jindy and Cooma was closed (13 cars had gone off the road in the space of half an hour) I was just imagining the call to work. "Not coming in, I am snowed in at Jindabyne, see you Wednesday ".

Turns out the road was clear, there was snow settled on the road all the way to Cooma and there was quite a bit of snow on the mountains even to Canberra.

Got home and was sleeping by midnight.

This weekend coming up should be great, it is so cold all the fresh will stay fresh, they need to break up the sheet ice for the groomers but that should be fine.

I had two runs through the Perisher SUPER pipe, and didn't clear the lip on either run, the thing has 18 foot walls - as big as the blackcomb pipe! The pipe at blackcomb had a wider transition though, the PB pipe is more taco shaped.

I dreamt about the pipe last night and need to get back there this weekend to boost it, just like I was doing in my dreams.

Will show you all the photo's and vids later, this weekend coming is going to be a cracker.


http://www.biglines.com/photos/blpic26008.jpg

http://www.biglines.com/photos/blpic26009.jpg

And a pic of my mate who made it onto the resort website - he is super stoked;

http://www.biglines.com/photos/blpic26010.jpg

[divegirl]

I enjoyed reading your posts, (ok, I actually enjoy the pictures a lot more, but I did enjoy your reactions) so keep it up Ski Beaver! Looks like this board could use some more flare from south of the equator!

[Toque]

Sounds like it was a good time. Wish I could be skiing right now.
This is from my brothers online journal. He hasn't been more than 5 times in the last 10 years but when he gets out he tries hard. He was at the same ski hill though. Maybe you saw him.


Finally I got to visit Australia’s famous ski hills outside Canberra in the Aussie Snowy Mountain range. Borrowing some ski gear from a friend saved me some money but even with renting my skies and boots the package wasn’t that bad. Ticket prices here are insane! A one day lift pass costs $100 dollars, this for a hill the size of Hemlock. Luckily I got a great deal with one of the bus companies where I paid $125 for pass, the 2hr bus ride up to the hill and back, and rentals.



On the bus ride up I was talking with some of the people who I was going with and noticed that it was snowing outside. Hearing before that Australians don’t know how to deal with snow on the roads I commented to everyone that I hope the snow doesn’t shut down access to the ski hills.



The people I was with FREAKED out, “its snowing what! Where! Oh my god look everyone it’s snowing!?ESPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> They went on and on like they never had seen it snow and these are people who go skiing more than 4 times a month! Finally after they had calmed down at the sudden site of it snowing they explained that even though it gets cold in the snowy mountains there isn’t any rain to turn into snow. So the ski hills totally depend on snow machines and the occasional snow fall to coat the slopes.



After two hours on the bus we arrived at what I assumed was the ski hill, got my rentals and looked around for the ski lifts. It was almost blizzard conditions, you couldn’t see much and there were hundreds of people milling around, staring in awe at the snow.



I asked where the lifts where and was told that we where in fact not at the hill yet and that a train would take us the rest of the way. The train took us to the lodge at the, Perisher Blue ski resort.



http://www.perisherblue.com.au/winte.../bluecow.shtml



The first couple of runs weren’t that great for me as I didn’t have the right equipment for such a cold and snowy day. I kept on having to rearrange this scarf I had borrowed, wrapping it around my head to keep warm. Also, I didn’t have any goggles but I did have these huge wrap around sun glasses that worked OK. The only problem with them was that when I stopped they would fog up, I just had to keep in motion.



The conditions were pretty good on the hill. With the snow fall they had about 4 inches of powder on top of hard crunchy snow. Off the groomed runs you could get into some nice untracked powder. One thing that struck me as weird was the amount of uncovered objects, because of their lack of snow. Back home these would be covered and be nice little jumps but here they weren’t and so no little jumps along the side of the runs ?Every weird.



I had a great time skiing with everyone but because of the lack of vertical slope on the hills we spent a lot of time traversing to the next run at the next hill. Also, the focus on the hill was the beginner. There was even this 8 person chair that served only green runs. Anybody who wanted to ski the limited amount of “black?Eruns had to use a map to figure out which of a maze of T-bars to use to get to the run.



All in all a great day and apparently one of the coldest and snowiest that anyone could remember.

[Superstar Punani]

Originally posted by Ski Beaver
Well Well Well.


Was going up car park double late Saturday the wind was strong enough to be lifting kids off the ground. Itried to unload but my pass was caught on the chair and i ended up getting stuck and going round the chair and landing in the safety netting - it was wicked cool

G'Day mate, get your arse over to Gapicski, ya punter! Bloody hell!!!!

[Ski Beaver]

Toque, your brother sums it up quite well - it is good to hear the perspective of someone experiencing the Oz slopes for the first time.

I always have a lot of fun skiing in Oz, but I don't copmpare it to skiing Nthn Hemisphere, I compare it to other seasons in Oz.

When I am skiing in the Nthn Hemisphere I compare the fun I am having to other trips to the Nthn Hemishere. Make sense?

Oh, and Punani, I felt just like one of those bloody punters out of a Warren Miller movie - "you want your ski? Go get it!". Mates had a great time watching me scramble out of the netting.

[Ski Beaver]

More pics;

Perisher Blue superpipe, with Gum trees in the background for Punani (sorry no Koalas just yet).

http://www.biglines.com/photos/blpic26044.jpg

Nice and dry;

http://www.biglines.com/photos/blpic26045.jpg

[Toque]

Is that you in the pipe?

And are Koalas actually bears?

[Ski Beaver]

Sadly it's not me in the pipe - this weekend I should be in there a bit more.

Koalas are not bears, they are just Koalas.

[Toque]

Really just Koalas. They arn't big rats or something?

[satori]

Koalas? Arent they them thingys which sit around doing trains on da honeyz? My mate from Taz (tasmania) has a sweet poster with about 9 of em giving it to each other

Ski Beaver, whered ya stay at Niseko when you where there? Are you one of the guys who bought that pension just down from the Alpine?

aka Yuki's Passion

[Ski Beaver]

Satori,

Haven't been to Niseko yet, planning a big trip there for Jan / Feb 2005.

I didn't purchase the pension either - I wish!

[Ski Beaver]

Weekend was a mixed bag - a little wet on Saturday but Sunday more than made up for it.

Some pics from Thredbo on Sunday;

Golf course bowl - lap after lap through here all day - was heavy going down low, but up top it was amongst some of the best days I have ever had.

5 more sleeps until I do it all again.

http://www.biglines.com/photos/blpic26128.jpg

http://www.biglines.com/photos/blpic26129.jpg

http://www.biglines.com/photos/blpic26130.jpg

[tjb]

Hi SB, I met you and Janus at Eyre that day at PB early season (I'm Tim).

Thredbo looked pretty good. Do you have a pass there ?

As PB pass holders, we don't fork out extra to go to Thredders unfortunately ! But Interceptor and the Ridge Chair were really good on Sunday. Saturday sucked at Perisher. Heard there were a few lift problems at Thredbo though.

All the best, I'll see you around.

tjb

PS> good to see some Aussie content!

[Ski Beaver]

G'day Tim.

I met your bro Dave as well the other weekend - he skis almost as well as you do.

I only have a PB season pass but I try to get over to Thredbo a couple of times a season when a lot of mates are over there.

Janus and some other guys were over there, I can see why they like Thredbo so much. Golf course bowl has some nice hits.

I will be back at PB this weekend, really looking forward to it.

Hopefully see you there.

[Ski Beaver]

A pic from Thredbo today.

Will be back there on Friday.

http://www.biglines.com/photos/blpic26162.jpg

[Toque]

Except for the wet snow pic those look very much the same as what Niseko is. Just add a metre of powder and make it a bit steeper. But just a bit.

[Superstar Punani]

Originally posted by Ski Beaver
A pic from Thredbo today.

Will be back there on Friday.

Tell the Mullens brothers that the Kirkweed crew said G'Day.

[Ski Beaver]

Another mate of mine in the Golf course bowl on Sunday.

Vid is about third post down.

Janus dropping in

[ak_powder_monkey]

I'm crying I really am, that wind buff reminds me of Alpenglow