"Sunday will be a classic day, blue skies, fresh powder and no winds..." so the snow report said. Looking around the reports for each of the mountains in Canterbury, it was going to be hard to find somewhere that didn't have perfect conditions! The likes of Hutt and Porters would be packed full of weekend warriors, so back to the clubbies it was, and there's no bigger one than Craigieburn.
Time to Chill
A very icy start to the day - all the doors on my car were frozen shut, meaning a climb through the boot to give them a kick from the inside. Picked up my SnowPool passenger for the day - Mark from Aussie. Luckily he'd been up there before, so explained some of the best spots to head for. Stopped off at Chill HQ in Springfield to buy a Chill Pass - this lets you ride at any of 11 mountains at cheaper rates (around $50 a day). Also got myself a proper harness for the rope tows - similar to a climbing harness, making it loads more comfortable than the old-skool free ones at the fields. Shaping up to be an epic day - check out the views:
Trees, Powder and Fast Rope Tows
Now there's something unusual about Craigieburn - it (almost) has tree runs - well, there's trees on the drive up, around the car park and on the lower end of middle basin. Up the first rope tow, faced with turning a corner via a big inverted drum thing - FEAR unnecessary though. On to second tow and hadn't quite got the nutcracker closed, don't know how but managed to put my left thumb through the pulley. 
As if that wasn't painful enough, I then fell off the tow and landed on the same thumb, bending it right back and feeling like it was dislocated 
. Not a good start. Hiked the rest of the way up to the day lodge. Thumb appeared intact and moveable, but got progressively more painful over the day - wasn't going to let that get in the way though.
Luckily there was plenty of barely-tracked powder next to the bottom 2 lifts because by lunchtime I'd still not managed to get up the top one - so frustrating! Rode the lower half of Middle Basin, which was great. Chilled at the day lodge for a bit - amazing views from the balcony, barbie on the go (which almost blew up). No bins up there, which was a bit odd, but means no keas and less work for staff I suppose. Determined to nail this top lift, I got back into my shouting at Sloth all the way up "You are holding on all the way", "Stay away from the pulleys, Sloth" until finally "Yeeeesssss!!! I made it". Get in. And what a view - was so, so worth it.
A long hike and a long run down
Now I'd made it up there, might as well head up as high as possible - Hamilton Peak, to the left was the one. Hiked up there, finding possibly the most spectacular mountain views in NZ - 360 degrees of snow-covered peaks. Plenty of vert and knee-deep pow on the ride down - fair few small chutes to hit, loving it. Back up again and was already nearing the end of the day - damn time had gone quickly. In need of one last epic run, I followed a group of snowboarders round the other side towards Middle Basin. Traversed all the way round as far as possible, just out of patrolled area. Hard to express how good this run was - untracked, dry deep pow all the way, gulleys, slashing powder over the rocks, wind lips, it had the lot. Genius. All big smiles and collapsed in a heap at the bottom. That's what I'm here for. Was so good it felt like that long off-piste run down from Tignes to Val D'Isere (Tommeuses?)
As usual, all the photos are on my Flickr. Mark got a few of me dropping off the top of the peak, so will hopefully have those at some point too. Not been up yet this week, but more new snow around today so will soon be on to the next one...