"Get up and have a look at how much snow there is outside!"...grumble, grumble, groan from Sloth..."Woah! ok then, now we're farming!"
This was only supposed to be a small front coming in, but turns out to be Mr Dumpy's Special Stuff. Bit of a car nightmare, cos Sarah-Jaye had ours in at work in town, Jon had fishtailed his twice yesterday on way up to Coronet and Canadian Sarah's was stuck with her in snowed-in Fernhill (6 cars had crashed, blocking the roads. Kiwis + driving + snow = no idea!). Still, got it sorted in the end, got up only as far as Gorge Road (that's just 1km out of Queenstown) before we had to put the chains on - never seen it like this! Was still absolutely belting it down, roads not cleared at all. After a few false starts with the chains, putting them on to quick trying to beat everyone else, then falling off again
, got cracking up to Coronet. Took around 1 3/4 hours compared to the usual 25 mins! Where were the snowploughs? Too much snow for you was it?
Headed straight up Express chair, got blasted by wind and snow, blind leading the blind up there (I could lead as I could see out of the corner of my right eye). Powder everywhere - must've been about 30cm on the piste alone.
And then we ventured into the unknown....
Ok, total whiteout, riding down blacks in deep pow, no markers. Pop quiz, what do you do? Picked our way through using the only couple of things we could see, bits of rocks, snow canons etc. Ended up riding through more and more unknown, all completely untracked, eventually ending up on the piste towards Rocky Gully (deep, untracked again!).
From then on, rode the T-Bar all day long, taking in acres of untracked pow, with not a single other person on it . The lifty had so little to do he ended up building a snowman - we were pretty much the only ones riding his lift! Could barely see anything for most of the day, except for a couple of 5 minute breaks now and then - when this did happen though it was clear that there were only our tracks out there! Love that. The Massey loved it, the Anthem loved it, we all loved it.
I could bang on about the pow all day, but those of you not riding at the moment won't be loving that. There was a great war cry from Sloth as he charged, straightlining it towards a windlip, took off, flew past Jon and landed in a big pile of fluffy white stuff. In these conditions it just doesn't matter what happens!
Got back to the car and there was a Jarmarl moment - car keys. Gone. Might not see them again till spring. Ah well, got a lift down, back home and time for a couple of beers before Alan grabbed hold of the situation.
Days like this remind me why I love this ***. Miss you all, was riding with you all today. Over and out, powder Sloth. x