No Standing Only Dancing: Last Weekend at Mt Buller Adventures!

nothing better than approaching a snow-capped mountain

Even though I have skied at Mt Buller for 21 years, it was only in the last year or two that I truly started to get my adventure-on and I still have only scraped the surface.

This weekend was my last at Mt Buller for the winter as I am heading Nshredland tomorrow. So naturally, I had to make it count.

Friday night= party. tick. counted.
Saturday= literally getting down and dirty with mother nature. tick.counted. Sunday= late ski, with a rainy evening twist. tick. counted.
Monday= pow day avec wombats. tick. counted.

And this is how it went.

Following a late Friday night, I slowly got my act together and went out for a ski. After shredding down some of the firm but fun southside slopes and trying to convince Simon from Liberty Skis that ice is great I met up with Jock Gunn, Mt Buller's own telemark mountain-man for some shredtastic times.

woop

We headed down some of the northside spurs, for a few cheeky pow turns and a little bit of fun.

finally the sun came out to play

After some turns we continued to head down the summer trail to the river. We had planned to head back up on our skins but as Jock started to tell me about the time he had skied down via the river to Boggy Creek corner I got excited..... yeah let's keep on going, my mind totally ignored the phrase ".....but I don't think there will be enough snow right now." Jock, being the easy-going guy he is was happy to go along with my silly ideas.

Jock checking out the river

It all started out pretty sweet, log rolling, skiing through bushes, and traversing along the spur, that is until the snow ran out and the ground dropped away.

stealth like a wombat

mountain ash trees- majestic

considering dirt-drops

jock carving up the tundra

logs, ferns and mud. a great recipe for total outerwear ruin

I wasn't worried when the snow ran out, we can walk, I wasn't worried when the slope turned into a downward, we can down climb these ferns. But I did freak out when my beautiful SOS outerwear became streaked with mud and dirt. haha.

river crossing!

After about 1hr we heard the road, only the river and the rocky waterfalls to beat now! At this stage, Jock informed me that we weren't heading to Boggy creek cnr but rather somewhere way more exciting.

ever seen this place before?

yep that is right.......the waterfall at Whitebridge, halfway down the mountain.

Adventure score= 7 skiing score= 3 (would have been more if there was snow)

I would not recommend this route unless it dumps, you like dodging bushes and you know where you are heading! A sit by the fire was necessary afterwards.

So Saturday night turned into Sunday morning, it was raining when I woke up, so I took it easy until 6pm when Simon Platzer, Sonja Oberli and myself strapped on a our skins and set a brisk pace to the summit- just for shits and giggles.