Hotham pics 2011

[El_Freddo]

Friday 10th of June 2011. The season officially opened at 3pm...

^ Ruby Scoo was parked here for a couple of days before having to be moved to staff parking later in the arvo.

^ Higgi Drive behind the Arlberg. Good snow coverage that's about to get better with the next front. All vehicles would be banned from here at 3pm. Fines would be issued for non-compliance but weren't starting to be issued until Sunday.

^ While in the RMB office sorting out my parking permit I saw this ice formation fall off the roof!

^ Village lift before use. It didn't get used on opening weekend and probably won't open for another week or two if we don't get any decent snow. You don't see the lifts iced up like this often!

^ Chairs on the village chair lift iced up.

^ One of the old trees that feature in a couple of pics up here, I enjoy photographing them anyway.

^ The first Forester diesel I've seen up here.

^ Ruby Scoo about to be moved to staff parking

^ Ruby's been growing some icicles...

And what I saw before I went to bed after my first Night Manager shift on Friday night:

Magic! Followed by a sleep of only a couple of hours...

Now we're getting foggy conditions with moisture droplets as the temps are above 0 degrees, the snow is slushy out the back on higgi drive and the road is clear and easy to drive at the moment. Hoping for more snow that continues for the next 3 months...

Cheers

Bennie

 

[mr turbo]

Great pics El_Freddo

Looks like you're going to have a great ski season

Regards
Mr Turbo

 

[carljwnc]

Awesome pics!!! Looks like you are off to a great start for the season.:ebiggrin:

Stay warm.

 

[El_Freddo]

Yeah its not going too bad so far. Certainly a great opening weekend - now its quiet again and the snow is melting slowly... Got a couple of days of sun which is actually better than the windy overcast days we had a couple of days ago - it had a very heavy mist that wet everything, not good for the snow!

Its currently 6 degrees outside, it was 8 a couple of hours ago...

I got my ski pass yesterday - I so look like a terrorist! My boss reckons I would be bomb devision... Not Happy Jan!

Speaking of Jan - Yarney: I saw an advert while at the RMB the other day. 4wd summer activities would be a good spot to get some info from. I saw a flyer that has a couple of things in it but I think they're covered in the above website. I'll get the details of those maps that would be useful up here

Cheers

Bennie

 

[El_Freddo]

This is what I finish work to when there's no clouds

^ There's a fingernail moon crescent in that pic on the left... Can you spot it - photo doesn't do it justice, the whole thing was AWESOME!

The Razorback ridge line:

This is what the northern side of Mt Higginbotham looked like after some school kids trashed the beautifully laid down snow from Tuesday/Wednesday night:

I want one of these! This one is the small unit that does the cross country trails:

The sunrise yesterday:

^ From that to this on Mt Higginbotham in about 40 to 50 minutes:

I'm going to miss the sun rises once this job is over...

I'm hoping to get some pics out and about today, hopefully there will be a break in the cloud at just the right time.

For an idea of how this season is shaping up, this time last year we had 19cm of natural snow - to the point that there were barely 3 lifts open and they weren't any "decent" ones for an intermediate skier/boarder let alone an advanced skier/boarder! This year we have (as of Thursday) 98cm... 98cm!!! Awesome. And there's more on the way!

Loving it. I busted Ruby Scoo out the other day to head to melbs, on our way home I let her cut sick in some snow that was about 15cm deep in an empty carpark or two. I'm keen to get some on video. Circle work in the snow is awesome especially if it is fresh - its almost like doing circle work in your car in the water - huge sprays of snow in all directions...

Loved it - now I just want to get out and drive more as the road is covered pretty much all the way down to "The Meg" - a corner formally known as the Devil's elbow but it was changed due to religious sensitivity and the negative connotation it gave. NO ****!!! It's pretty much a 180 bend on a steep slope... Anyway, the Meg is about 2/3 of the way down the mountain to Harrietville!

Time to close off for the night...

Cheers

Bennie

 

[mr turbo]

There's some more great pics there mate, keep them coming

Regards
Mr Turbo

 

[Dulagarl]

Excellent stuff mate. A really nice collection of pics and good descriptions.

 

[El_Freddo]

Ok epic update:

Went boarding with my cousin last saturday - conditions were windy but we stuck to the Big D as it was an easy run and the lift pass couz got was only for this lift so the choice was pretty easy:

Couz and I ^

Iced up lift wheel.

Windy with small ice crystals in the air!

^ Looking east over to the davernport area of the Hotham Village.

The hill that the two ski runs go around - Easy street to the right going behind, QC to the left going down.

Iced up snow gums from the clouds whipping past them - the moisture sticks to anything thats in the way.

First tracks this morning (Monday):

The sundowner run with the Gotcha and Orchid chair lifts off in the distance.

^ On the heavenly chair, slalom gully on the left.

^ Me on the Heavenly chair ready to rip some lines.

^ Feathertop in the clouds... Interesting clouds today too - two layers, one on top of feathertop and the other in the valleys off in the distance. Amazing! I love living up at high altitude!

Wind barrier/snow harvesting technique, only this particular occasion I don't think they netted much snow on the other side, but the cloud moisture looks awesome and was about 15cm horizontally deep!

Top of Heavenly Chair lift with the top end of Hotham in the background.

Feathertop on the left with some interesting cloud formations to the right of that in what I think is the start of the Kiewa valley.

Top of Hotham Village with the Arlberg being the red and grey building below Mt Higginbotham, this is from the top of the Black Snake run.

...

 

[El_Freddo]

On the Gotcha chair that was very heavy with ice!

Support and power cables on the Gotcha Chair all iced up - you can see the black cable near the tower, it's VERY thin!

Orchid/Keogh's Chair lift before de-icing. Every morning if there has been snow or wind blown ice the chair lifts have to be de-iced before use, this can take some time if it's been a good dump!

One very loaded heavenly chair lift!

The iced up mobile phone tower! Looks awesome when it's like this I reckon.

Heavenly chair from the bottom near snake gully hut while we waited in line to get on...

Very heavily snow/ice laden snow gums photographed from the Gotcha chair.

Keogh's bash ski run with the Keogh's chair beside it.

Frosted remains of the snow gum trees since the '06 bush fires. The trees are re-generating but these eucalypts do it from their roots rather from the epicormic "glands" under the bark.

Icy landscape with the "harsh" Australian sun out behind the Orchard Chair lift.

Looking back towards the Gotcha and Keogh's Chair with Gotcha, the Chute, Mary's slide and the Ridge ski runs visible.

Looking back over Hotham Village from Spargos - I think we were looking pretty much South East direction.

Drew at the top of One Tree Hill - where I wiped out over a little knoll half way down the slope due to too much speed, cornering and getting air - I landed but couldn't hold it, stacked and almost slid into the only tree on the slope! Good times.

Another image of Keogh's Bash with the sun on it to show how chopped out/well used it is by 1pm!

A great day out - I've had about 4-5 hours sleep between shifts so tonight could be interesting...

Cheers

Bennie

 

[sube_fresh]

Wow, talk about fantastic pics. It's 94 Degrees Fahrenheit in Pennsylvania, USA. Id love to take trip down under to carve some lines on that terrain. I didnt know Winter started in June there.

 

[dirtyRU]

Those are some great shots Bennie
Looks like it was a fun day on the slopes!

 

[mr turbo]

Looks like you are having a great ski season El_Freddo, thats for sure :ebiggrin:

That pic of the iced up snow gums is a beauty
The mobile phone tower looks awesome too. Almost looks like something from another planet in that pic :biggrin:

Regards
Mr Turbo

 

[carljwnc]

Very refreshing pics to look at, considering the weather were having here right now.

Thanks Bennie!!!:ebiggrin:

 

[El_Freddo]

Thanks everyone for the replies about the great pics - I often have trouble taking them as my mates head down the hill while I'm snapping away or waiting for the sun to shine on something to enhance it like the mobile phone tower... I've got a few more of that one coming through that look awesome (If I do say so myself). Please be patient as I upload and work at the same time

Id love to take trip down under to carve some lines on that terrain. I didnt know Winter started in June there.

Winter starts in June, snow could start falling as early as april but won't last long. Our real snow comes sometime in July/early August. This year we're over 1m of natural snow already which is great for the base later in the season!

Those are some great shots Bennie
Looks like it was a fun day on the slopes!

I had a great day on the slopes dirtyRU! I got another one in on thursday I think then went again on saturday and was still pretty sore so I didn't hit it hard, plus I was on my own...

Looks like you are having a great ski season El_Freddo, thats for sure :ebiggrin:

That pic of the iced up snow gums is a beauty
The mobile phone tower looks awesome too. Almost looks like something from another planet in that pic :biggrin:

Just wait till you see some of the pics that will be coming later! Love them and would like to have a couple framed when I get around to it!

Very refreshing pics to look at, considering the weather were having here right now.

No worries Carl! Glad you enjoy them!

My wife and I dropped into Lakes on Tuesday night to catch up with some friends - clutch died on the way which made it interesting. Great time had. I must say that it was very weird to see rain again! Very strange to us!
Then on the way home the pressure plate let go = no drive to the gearbox = no go anywhere without a truck...

Cheers

Bennie

 

[El_Freddo]

About to digging Ruby Scoo out from the snow in the staff carparking:

As I said above, I lost the use of my clutch on the way to Lakes Entrance to visit some mates, we were halfway off the mt. We swung by a mate's pero's joint to see if there was anything we could do to fix/repair it. No go so we rang the local mechanic in Omeo who said he had some tricks up his sleeve with cable clutches. Got there, I put my foot on the clutch while he watched the fork's movement. Verdict is "you've got his far without a clutch, you could probably get there and back without it".

No worries so off we went. 300km later and we were on our way home when the pressure plate seemed to let go - so no going further for us. RACV total care got us towed to our mates joint for an extra fee. Ironically it was the same mechanic we spoke to the day before! This is where we broke down:

Thursday the 14th I went skiing with my mate again, she'd met some other older skiers at the lodge they were staying out who showed us around the mountain which was great - finding all those little nooks and crannies where there was still fresh snow to be carved. I also popped my "Australia Drift" Cherry after having never skied there until that day. This gave me some great photo ops:

The morning VERY windy, couldn't see the ground due to the wind blown ice, much like it would be in the artic or antartic areas:

The mobile tower covered in ice with the sun on it:

Then after riding the summit chair to the top I snapped this shady image of the tower:

Mt Hotham Village from the top of the Drift between the summit chair and the drift T bar - much like the one earlier in the thread but this time with snow:

My two favourite pics to add to the collection, first the mobile phone tower in all its glory:

^ At the base of the tower is a cyclone fence! Now it's a wall of ice...

Love the wind blown ice formation! This is one of the biggest I reckon I've seen!

Currently we're getting more snow in waves that is wettish and heavy, hopefully it'll crisp up again for some nice dry powder!

Cheers

Bennie

 

[mr turbo]

Great pics once again El_Freddo, keep them coming I say
Sorry to hear about your clutch & pressure plate problems Hope its all fixed really soon mate

Regards
Mr Turbo

 

[El_Freddo]

Live update:

It's just started puking down with some epic snow - blizzard conditions I'd say!

Temp dropped to about -2.5 degrees C from +2C then it started to snow very heavily, now the temp has risen to -0.2 and is slowly dropping again and is currently sitting on -0.3.

Hopefully this keeps up all night - if so I'll be out for first tracks for sure.

Now it's not as intense but it's still snowing steadily

Probably the result of the weather that the coast of NSW has received recently...

In the words of Big Kev - "I'm excited!!"

Cheers

Bennie

 

[Escher]

Hope the blizzard truly delivered, Bennie!

With best wishes from hot and humid -- and needless to say, snow-less -- West Africa.

 

[El_Freddo]

Well that live update didn't last long with the puking down snow

But now we've got this:

Last Sunday (07AUG11) I had a mate come up for a few days so we got to hang out and hit the slopes for a bit in the arvo, it worked out really well. I broke my three and a bit week skiing drought!

We hit up the Brockhoff ridge line through the trees quite a bit that day - found some small patches of untouched fresh snow to ski which was awesome! This is us coming out from the trees:

Old school mate and I - I'm not one to usually post personal pics but I was pretty stoked to be skiing with a good old friend, plus it's a good pic too:

I call this photo the "I own an expensive vehicle make so I can park anywhere I want". Yeah, the bus stop - epic fail:

Snow falling - this is what we like around here! Lots of it too!

And I got a suprise package from Canada on Monday arvo:

^ My sister rocked up an announced - so we've got the "chop-c trifecta" as our mates are calling it!

Monday 08AUG11:

So we had breakfast (cheese and spag jaffles) out the front of the 'berg while we watched the sun come up - but a cloud was in the way but we had a good time anyway:

Feathertop looking awesome! I'd sooo love to be doing an alpine walk out there for a couple of days of free skiing in the area!

Something you don't see everyday - two aircraft that appear to be passenger liners flying very close together while turning around back to the direction of sydney, second plane is in the bottom left corner of the pic:

We hit up Avalanche gully for some free skiing on slopes that had some really fresh snow - it was awesome. The walk out almost killed us though!

Here's the slope we carved up:

And this is how it was looking this afternoon - very healthy snow!

I'm hoping it keeps up over night as I'm keen for first tracks tomorrow morning with some very fresh snow on the runs But I have heard that it has been raining outside from time to time - not cool enough which is a real bummer as we've had a fresh injection of healthy snow, if it's raining that'll wipe all of that out and almost put us back to the negative of "what's the season going to do - end short?" mode...

Cheers

Bennie

 

[Darkanion]

Wow! Nice pictures!