New Zealand weather is so unpredictable, it really can't make it's mind up. I'm wearing shorts and t-shirt one day, a cold sou'wester comes in overnight and drops a nice 15cm of dry winter snow on the mountains. Scrapped my plans of building 2 new veggie gardens (see this month's Whitelines for the "Life begins at 30" article 
) and drove out to the Cheese.
Cheeseman's probably an unlikely choice for a powder day, but I had 2 days left on my Chill pass and Mt Hutt's not worth battling with on the Sunday in the school holidays - would be tracked out in 2 minutes and 48 seconds. Porters Pass was looking stunning as ever, covered in snow. The access road up to the Cheese was a bit sketchy though - no wonder so many people get punctures up there - nobody heard of clearing the road?! Still, barely anyone there so freshies all round.
Just T-Bars up there, the Ridge one being the slowest known to mankind. Still, it's only a small-ish mountain so you're up there a lot quicker than the likes of Porters (damn that 1km drag is dull). Spent the first few runs riding the right side, with a short hike to the summit of Mt Cockayne. Snow was soft, dry and wintery, just had to ride lightly as there wasn't loads of it before you hit Crusty and friends. Bits of tussock showing through in parts, but that always makes something to pop over.
After letting patrol know, I dropped over the back into Tarn basin a couple of times - untracked, full-speed straightlining it. After lunch (beer and cheese toasty), I couldn't resist hiking a bit further up the ridge (just look at that pic above!). Had spotted a few others skiing the far side of the basin, but wasn't too into their lines so picked a beauty for myself. Massive grin, massive Columbian effort to look back up at, followed by a bastard of a hike back out. Seriously, I was nailed after that one. Time for home. Yeh, the Cheese is worth a visit for a day - I suppose it's a bit like Cardrona in terms of terrain - nothing too steep. Very friendly, local crew up there - nice one. Here's the photos. By the way, I looked everywhere, all over the mountain but couldn't find any evidence of it being made of cheese. Disappointing
Oh, and I think there's some work for you up there, Dan Black. How do you like this bridge?
