With only a sprinkling of new snow overnight, it was hard to pick out the best place to go from the snow reports. But seeing as it's 2-for-1 at Porters on a Monday, making it only $37.50 each, it was worth putting up with the t-bars for the day. Must've been damn cold overnight in Methven as Rosie's doors were frozen shut again; also very sketchy on the roads between there and Springfield - plenty ice 
. Porters pass was looking spectacular though - snow all around and yep, another bluebird day. Here's how things were looking on arrival:
No sign of clouds, is there? Mirror lenses on, they should be fine for the day? Hmm. We couldn't be arsed with chains, so got the free shuttle up the mountain - wish other places did this. Scoped out the lines leading all the way back down to the car park - now that would be an epic run. On the way up, learnt of the rare species of sheep found in these parts. They have specially adapted to the steep conditions by growing their legs longer on one side of the body than the other. This way, they're always standing horizontally to the mountain. Only problem being they can only walk around the mountain in the same direction. Can you imagine that, Mark?
In search of powder
Met up with the others and the six of us headed straight up the 3 t-bars (that first one is 1km and painfully slow) then off left on a crappy traverse line - icy, crusty, windy. Still, we had to get round to Big Mama (720m vert). Well, it was ok but nothing special. Snow was a bit sun and wind-affected, but a good long run anyway. Back up again we went off the other side, along the top ridge (very very windy) and tried various runs down there. Patches of soft pow in between crust, plenty piled up on side of catties (mostly for me to put my face in).
The view from the top is ridiculous - check this out:
Bluff Face was the winner - hit that up all of the rest of the day. The wind was working in our favour, filling in our tracks with soft dry snow each time we got back round. Found a couple of little chutes and drops, all good. Then the vis went to shit (remember that bluebird start?) - some massive dark grey clouds rolled straight in over the top of us just as we called it a day. Heavy snow all the way back down the mountain - good as it was topping everything up, shame as it meant no riding down to the car park. So here's those same two shots at the end of the day. Nope, you can't trust the mountain weather.
Shame we didn't get a bit more fresh and a bit less wind, but another great day's riding with a good crew - looks like I was loving it here anyway!
Almost forgot about the hardcore chocolate cake. Well, it was cake, it was chocolatey and it was snowing while I ate it. And again, poor Dave - having moved on from the splitboard incident, hired a Custom, pulled one of the bindings off on 2nd run, knackering the threads. Gutted.
Here's my pics and here's Farran's (great riding with you 
).