Day of the season?

Its a big call, but one that was being bandied about over the weekend in reference to the snow season. With rain falling all during the week in Melbourne, and the temperature seeming to stay low, it was possible the planets were indeed aligning.



Anyway, onto the hill we drove, and headed for the top. And straight into a line of traffic at the snowline. Turns out we're all getting onto the mountain with chains on, and in convoy. For as far as I can see, no reason... There was about 100m of slush through the village and the rest of the road was clear, albeit a touch narrow. Which was being helped in no way by the snow clearing plow that was parked behind me in the line of traffic. In a complete shambles, it turned out the 3 snow blowers that Stadelmans (vicroads snowclearing subcontractors) have had broken down, and they had just two snowploughs dragged kicking and screaming from the 60's. MtHotham management was at pains on their Facebook and social media to point out how it wasn't their fault, and how they were helping, but nobody cares, just get the road open! It was but one example of a shambolic friday night on the hill, which Mt Hotham RMB need to address to ensure the satisfaction of their customers... You want to charge a squillion dollars for a service, then you must deliver on your promises or we all won't come back... Plenty of other resorts around the world make a great case for a visit!!

With friends making it up around midnight, we unloaded and settled in until Mick went to move his car to the overnight carpark. A nice warm, lowslung car with a gas tank did a great job of melting straight down to its belly, and that was the end of that. On their third pass, a MtHotham vehicle ended up pulling him out, and the weekend continued but I sure did laugh...

I guess the payback was that I left my window down all weekend, so karma is a bitch.


At any rate, the sun came out in the morning, the melted snow had refrozen, and we're away!! Phone camera this weekend sadly.

And then late in the arvo, the clouds rolled in. We'd kinda appropriated a car from the carpark and headed up to the 'Cross' for a bit of a hiking session. The clouds rolled in as we parked up, but we decided to see what snow conditions were like regardless. First run down 'Pink Hamburger' (!!?) was crusty but worth a second look, but by the time I had hiked back to the top and strapped in, the temperature had risen enough to turn the snow to absolute glue. I persevered down to the bottom and walked the boot pack back out, but it was all over. With boards not running on the snow, it was game over for the day.

After picking up a sore throat on friday night, it was pretty much game over for sunday, with a test run of the Higgi bowl at the back of the resort yeilding sheet ice, and then some sneaky blue ribbon runs, my body packed it in. And that was all she wrote...

Wonder whats next?