Charlotte Pass / Twin Valleys by Andrew Brooke
On Saturday 12 July 08 the day dawned clear after snowing a lazy 30-odd cm over the past 3 days.
The trip was nearly over before it began as the Charlottes Oversnow driver decided to get a fresh track of his own and got himself stuck in a hole near Guthries Creek. Eventually he got out and I spent the morning doing laps on the Charlottes triple chair where the fresh pow lasted nearly until lunchtime.
After carbo-loading at the buffet at the Chalet, I donned the skins and headed up towards Little Stilwell to visit old friends the Twin Valleys. The gentle skin up Kangaroo Ridge was rather easy - mostly thanks to the howling northwesterly winds at my back. Big streams of loose snow hurtled over the ridgeline in the gale.
The Main Range seen over the sastrugi of Kangaroo Ridge.
Snow was racing uphill towards the Trapyard Creek flats.
My mouth was watering at the prospect of some deep windblown drifts in the lee slopes. Unfortunately the reality turned out to be somewhat different as the snow was clearly blowing over the ridge and disappearing into an unknown dimension. Or to be more accurate, it was scouring the exposed parts clean and packing down instantly into hard ridges in the sheltered spots.
The cover varied between hard windpacked snow and bare ice.
Still some filling in required in Twin Valleys.
The run down Twin Valley Number 2 was acceptable but nothing special on the firm surface - my skis barely made an impression on the packed cover.
Turning around to hike back up, the wind smacked into me like a solid wall. Heading straight into the teeth of the wind, I inched back up. The trip back took approximately 400 times longer than the ski down but soon I was back at the pole line and heading back to Charlottes. As I passed the ruined top station of the old Thredbo-Charlottes chairlift I could only marvel at the incredible audacity of those who tried to build a chairlift across such an exposed and brutally gale-smacked area. It would have been quicker and cheaper to build a tunnel I reckon - which is what eventually happened of course, although it sensibly delivers punters to Numpty Creek rather than the top of Mt Stilwell.
The main range treated me to a great final view of Carruthers - also getting whipped by the wind.
The main range treated me to a great final view of Carruthers - also getting whipped by the wind. I had a look for James who was heading back through this area at about the same time, but it appeared he had been blown into eastern Victoria. Finally it was back into the sheltered Charlottes bowl and the pub.