My Splitboard Revolution

The word is in, the new boots are the bomb! I've taken my purchases on two trips thus far and loved the CRAZY CHANGES to my touring performance and riding sick-ness.

About a month ago now my faithful touring man Jock and I took up a friend to the Main Range (or Snowy Mountains), NSW for some exploration. After failing to fill up with petrol before every country service station decided to close on Sunday night we had to sleep a sneaky night in Khancoban. We finally made it to Deah Horse Gap just on the Victorian side of Thredbo.

Life felt rather North American as we stepped straight into skis out of the car. Hell Yeah to foregoing the usual Victorian hike to the snowline!

Such a low profile set up. 

Setting off from the car!

I was mocked for my enthusiasm at the "frictionless" touring mode in my new boots. It felt amazing to be able to raise the heel with so much freedom. The classic line for gloating telemarkers is "free the heel, free the mind" however I'm pretty sure those teleskiers have never felt the absolute freedom that comes from the Dynafit pin system. MIND BLOWING!

The weather on the first day meant that our trip from Dead Horse Gap was rather slower than we wished, therefore we ended up calling it stumps and setting up a pretty epic camp on North Ramshead peak. Check this out...

Home making.

Ski In - Ski Out!

Cooking up a storm in the cave.

Day 1 skiing entailed getting up to "Mt" Kosciuszko for lunch. I italicize the Mt, as Australia's highest mountain, being situated on an unfortunately high plain is more of a hill than a mountain. We Australians sure know how to make a mountain out of a molehill.

Skin-sition on the way to Kosciusko, the pimple in the left background.

At lunch we met a lovely father and son who had old school touring skis to tramp around the high plains. My favourite piece of information gleaned from them was that although they had forgotten tea, coffee, hot chocolate or anything else warm to drink they had fallen in love with hot powdered milk mixed with golden syrup. I'm not sure they will still be loving it back in Sydney.

Getting ready to shred Australia's highest mountain!

Although it might be a bit of a molehill, the 2 turns down under the Kosciuszko cornice was however mighty fun! Jock put in that nice swopping track in front of me. I was happy to get the extra turn in! 

The big ski led us down to Cootapatamba Hut.

This is the smallest hut I've every seen and truly an emergency shelter with little else but two rudimentary bunks. The second story is a ladder access entry in case of high snow levels... Oh the optimism of Australians.

Taking the opportunity to clean my face at the Cootapatamba Creek.

Another chilly night in the snow cave meant lots of sleep. We thought this was meant to be balmy spring skiing, but conditions were decidedly August-like!

Jock is artsy... Thanks for capturing the amazing skies.

Day 2 we decided to go ski South Ramshead and head on out down through the tree line and out to the car.

Chatting + skinning + sunshine = happiness. 

We ran into the father and son couple and tried to induce them to ski with us but they thought that their gear was more suited to the more mellow creek line. Some shared chocolate later we all cruised down through the trees. This was a test of my skills as a true split-board skier. As the terrain was undulating and snowboarding with a 30kg pack is somewhat difficult I decided to use my splitboard without skins on to negotiate the journey to the road. The asymmetry of the board when used as "skis" is somewhat challenging, as is tight tree skiing with a pack on. I was pretty proud of my epic Stem Christies and only had one serious run in with a tree!

After about 30 mins we were back at the car peeling off stinky layers of clothing and socks. I had developed an awesome blister which I swore over a bit in front of the tourists up in the mountains for some tobogganing. Not my best moment!

We wanted to make a cheeky side trip to Hotham on the way home and so braved the Benambra-Corryong road a two hour dirt extravaganza. The road was in much better condition than September 2011 which was a relief. Arriving at Hotham at 7:30pm on Wednesday I was pleased to have a couple of curries in the freezer ready for an end of season a dinner party with extra Hotham friends and a glass or two of schnapps at the pub.

What a trip!

Thanks to Jock Gunn for most of these photos yet again, I love having someone so handy with a camera who will cart it around at all times!