Skiing

While I was changing the tire I noticed a legacy from the day trip Georgie and I took to the snow the other weekend. And since it was such a re-letter day, I figured I'd post the whole skitrip story here :)

So, Winter is upon us and Georgie and I figured we should get in some time up at the snow, so the scene is set, the plans made. We decide to take my car, as George needs new rear tires, and his car is a big V8 statesman, so any loss of traction on the rear would be disastrous, as the car is heavy end powerful and would slip out of control very easily. Also, every time we've gone to the snow in recorded history, we've taken his car, so it was my turn. My car is overdue for a service, but not really hurting from it, it's in need of a new battery, but an overnight charge every 12 months covers it nicely, I also need new tires, as there's some uneven wear on the front due to a need for a wheel alignment, but there's still enough tread, and it's a small 4 cylinder front-wheel-drive, so even if it loses traction a little, it's easier to get it back under control.

The day starts as usual, very early :) The drive up is uneventful, the usual stop at Mansfield for chain hire and something to eat. Then the fun begins. Usually most of the places in Mansfield have ladder chains for hire, except a RUD shop, which had diamond chains for a good price. Now there's no RUD shop, and the main shop only had ladders. No biggie, you rarely have to fit chains at Buller on a Saturday.

As we enter the mountain we are informed that we'll need to fit chains.

This is always a bummer, especially when you discover that one of the chains is too large and doesn't fit right. But being a ladder chain, it fits ok. Except I forget about the trick to take up the slack at the end of the chain, and now I have scratches around the front quarter panel ;)

We get on the mountain, have a few runs around Horse Hill and then start to head over the other side. We ski down the the bottom of Grimmus, only to discover it's closed, due to high wind. Now our only solution is the very crowded T-Bar. As you may already know, Georgie and I are big guys, and two big guys going up a steep hill on a T-Bar are apt to joke about it breaking. This is all pretty funny, up until the point where it actually breaks. That's when it became insanely funny. We're lying in the snow either side of the T-Bar track pissing ourselves with laughter, Georgie with a T-Bar in his hand. Everyone coming up the T behind us started laughing as soon as they saw us. It was a lot of fun :) Then some ski patrollers coming up the T offered to take the broken T up for us, and we realized afterwards we'd made a mistake. From then on all the people coming up the T weren't laughing with us, they were laughing at us, assuming we'd fell off the T, rather than the T falling off on us :)
The day was a serious blizzard, visibility <5 meters, horizontal snow and sleet, hands freezing to the ski poles on the T-Bar. We have to herringbone up the hill, into the wind, through the snowmaking (wiping sleet off your goggles every few seconds) and down the gentle beginners slope, visibility so bad at times that we're skiing down by feel, knowing if you're on ice, snow or in a drift only when your skis hit it.

We stop for lunch and have some very bad food, my phone decides to reset itself, clearing all the data, leaving nothng in the memory, no phone numbers, no calendar, no extra game software. Not a big problem as I had it synched with my work machine, but It was very annoying at the time.

As we're taking the trail back to the sheltered side I have to spend 5 minutes staning in the blizzard in the middle of the trail, with nobody else in sight, that he is on the wrong trail to the village, but that he should follow it anyway, instead of heading out across the top of the hill. The trail markers are bright orand and about 10 meters apart, so you can only see the next one after you pass one, not before, and this bozo wants to strike out across country, looking for a trail he won't recognize, on a mountain he doesn't know, marked by poles he may not see, alone. I try to make it clear that he will probably die, that I wouldn't risk it myself, as I'd probably get lost and I knew what direction it was and had used the trail many times. So I think I convinced him, but got to the point where I didn't care. If you tell someone they will probably die if they do something dificult and be in no danger if they take the easy way, and they decide not to take your advice, it's not my problem anymore :)

The rest of the afternoon we spent in the sheltered side of the hill, skiing until I couldn't ski anymore due to lack of fitness :)

So we get the chair about 3:30pm and get to the ski-hire place in time to hear they just closed the mountain due to blizzard :) good timing on our part.

We go back to the car and I fix the chains a bit and we drive back down. Partway down we notice nobody else has their chains on anymore, so we stop and take them off. Not such a good idea as it turns out, and a few corners later I turn the wheel and the car doesn't turn :) we're only doing about 20 and there's a large bank of snow on the side, so it's not like we're going off the cliff, but we're still sliding into a large area of slush and snow about 20cm deep. Luckily we were going slow enough that I had enough time to get past the moment of panic and think about it. I stop trying to slow down, because if I stop in the sludge we will be bogged until someone can come and help us out, so turn the wheel hard to the side and as we enter the sludge I feed in a bit more accellerator and the car keeps it's momentum and we make the turn in the sludge ok and get back on the road. :) Georgie and I laugh a bit and we keep on going. :) What could go wrong? :)

That's about it, we return the chains, get home earlier than we thought and all is well, but bad chains, closed lifts, broken T's, blizzards, snowmaking, morons, exhaustion, and running off the road, certainly add up to a very funny day out :)