Mt Tate - 27 August 2009
The promise of a decent dump had Mark excited. It's that time of the year to make the most out of fresh snow before it turns to gloop. Whilst winds looked forecast to be strong the promise of decent snow won out and we both put in a big effort to get down to jindy by 7.30am on Wednesday morning.
On Tuesday i drove about 800km as well as working a full day and didn't arrive in Wagga till about 10pm. Had to pack the car when i got home and then got up at 4am wednesday morning and drove to Jindabyne. Mark also put in the hard yards leaving Newcastle at 1am wednesday morning. We both arrived in Jindy at 7.30am. Mark reported snow on the mountains from Canberra to Jindabyne.
It was still blowing pretty hard so we decided frontcountry was the go. We decided to head to Perisher and give the Paralyser a go. We changed our minds when we got up high on Mt P. It was blowing us inside out. Large chunks of ice blowing everywhere and poor visibility. Needless to say we decided to stay in the resort. Had a few OK runs down Mt P then headed over to North P. It was tracked out so we went back to Mt P after lunch. The morning crowds had thinned and the snow had filled back in leaving us an afternoon of freshies out wide on Eyre T-Bar.
On Wednesday night we had some fire issues. We got a little bit carried away with fire building and the strong winds were spreading embers all over the place. Luckily the risk of bush fire is very low in the mountains at this time of year. We loaded up the fire at about 8pm and it burnt through the night.
On Thursday it was still windy but the sky was much clearer. Given the strong winds we dicided Mt Tate would be our best bet to score some decent snow. Bowel issues delayed the start and we didn't get away from Guthega till 9.30am. This gave a few others a chance to get out in front and lay down some skin tracks. It wasn't long before we bumped into the owner of these skin tracks. None other than 'Brian Wilson' who was puting in some nice turns down below Gills Knobs.
Tate was in cloud but it looked to be clearing so we decided to go and ski it. We had agreat run down the main eastern face. The gullies were holding wind accumulated snow. Not deep but the edges were getting in a few centimeters and definitely got the feeling of skiing new snow.
Mark skis the main east face of Mt Tate.
After lunch we headed back up Tate. The wind up high was hideous. It was so strong you could lean into it and it would hold you up. We hung around long enough to take a few happy snaps and then skied the gully further north of our first run. Another good run but not quite as good as the first.
View of Watsons Crags from Tate.
Mark copping the wind on top of Tate.
View to Mt Jagungal from top of Tate.
Mark dropping into our second run down Tate.
Mark skiing the upper part of Tate.
We decided to call it quits after that and headed back to Guthega via Guthega Trig. We had a fun run back down to the dam wall along the ridge top. I got home without incident but Mark got tangled up in the bad prang on the F3. He didn't get home till 2am.