Step One: Go on a 20 km mountain bike on Saturday morning
Step Two: Go on a 7 km run (street-orienteering) on Saturday afternoon
Step Three: Go to Mt Buller on Sunday and have your first day of telemarking for the season
Category: general
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“i can see why people eat them”
In honour of the Queen (may she long reign over us, etc) we hiked up the highest mountain in the state on the long weekend. Much less pointy and impressive than the mountains available in Europe and Asia and those sorts of places, but high(ish) at 1986m (6516 ft). And snow-covered, which has to count for something.
After parking the car at around 650 metres, we spent most of Sunday going uphill.
Up Staircase Spur, through the singed mountain ash, past Bivouac Hut, past the growing collections of snow at the side of the path, through the snowgum regrowth, and finally out into the open, where it started to get seriously windy.
We ditched our packs for the final press up to the summit. After climbing on top of the summit cairn and admiring the amazingly clear view, we spent most of our time cowering in the shelter of the cairn. With winds around 80km/h, and a temperature of -8oC or so (down to around -20oC with wind chill) it was nice and cool.
After retrieving our packs, we didn’t have far to go to reach Eskdale Spur. Not far, but over the very exposed section of about 100 metres before the spur turnoff, Corey lost his pack cover, Mikey was blown over a couple of times, and managed to break the handle of the snow shovel strapped to his pack (and in the process coming to the conclusion that Blundstone boots really aren’t the ideal snow hiking shoe). Once we started heading down the spur, the wind died down and things became quite pleasant. We dropped down to below 1700 metres, and found Michell Hut, newly rebuilt after the previous hut at the site was burnt down in the 2003 bushfires.
The full moon popped up as soon as we’d finished watching the sunset. Dinner was cooked, no port was consumed, and we all crawled straight into bed (spending some time enjoying the educational ‘Outback’ magazine).
After 10 hours of sleep, the sun finally reappeared, and we hiked the other 1 km of down down down to get off the mountain. The good weather held, my knees held, the car was still there, and we got to meet a ferret.
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sunset at mt. bogong
So here’s the latest on the scarf… it’s now taller than me, but I think it needs to be a little bit longer before it qualifies for full Doctor Who Scarf status. Although I don’t want to do an Isadora Duncan, so I probably won’t be wearing it in any convertibles.
Meanwhile, I am full of crankiness towards companies that use phone help services that are based offshore. The AC adapter for my laptop has stopped working (two weeks out of warranty of course), so I needed to order a new one. After circling through a menu for 10 minutes, I talked to a man for another 10 minutes. The conversation ended when he told me that my laptop was still registered as being in America (where I bought it) on their system, and therefore before he could do anything, I would have to go to the website and change my details there. The change would take a few days to come into affect, and after that he could help me. At this point I may have become cranky at his scripted English, and ranted a little. At which point he gave me another phone number to call, and told me they would be able to help me. It turned out the phone number he gave me was just another version of the one I’d called already – well the number was different, but it took me to exactly the same menus. So some more circling (I don’t know how they managed to make a circular menu, but they did) and some key mashing later, and I was finally talking some more scripted English to someone who managed to order me a new adapter. Which will take 2-3 weeks to arrive. Until then, no laptopping. Very convenient, yes.
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aargh, damn you little turtle!
