Perisher 23-24 July

Tired and a little sore today but had an awesome trip.  Left Newport in Sydney at 3:20am Saturday morning and lobbed up in Jindy around 8:30am or a little after that, picked up some chains and headed off towards Perisher.  We became a little horrified at the amount of traffic heading to Perisher so we took the turn off to Guthega instead which turned out to be a great move, not another car on the road and although there was some snow we didn’t need to fit chains.  Plenty of parking nice and close to the lifts and not many ppl around at all.

Started the day off with a few warm up runs in Guthega before heading over to Bluecow.  Did a few runs over there and had a quick run through of the jump line which was kinda boring.  The lift lines at Bluecow were also a little crowded so we headed off to North perisher and spent some time on the Interceptor chair mucking around over near the devils playground area.

Had lunch down in front valley sitting watching the warm ups for the slopestyle event, saw some of the most impressive stuff go down that I have seen outside of a video in the 30 mins we sat there.  After that headed over to Mt P and did some runs off the double and triple chair before heading up the Olympic T looking for some fresh tracks.  Tried the West side in and around the rocks but the snow quality was very icy/crusty and not much fun and the thought of rocks gouging out the new T Rice was enough to get make me steer clear of a second go.  Went the other side of the T next go and got some very nice little pockets of fresh.

Around 3pm we found ourselves back up the top of the Mt P double and hiking over the back to the west side looking down NW towards Guthega.  Took us a fair while to work out our bearings and sort out where we needed to head to.  There was two tracks heading off down there so we figured unless no one had ever heard from the makers of the tracks again that we could follow them out anyway.

Mate looking pretty happy with things so far!

View from where we strapped in to head down to Guthega, not much gradient at the top but just past the top section it was great.

Turns out the decision to take that run on was the best one of the day, it was farken awesome.  Really soft snow, you wouldn’t call it powder powder but we were cutting into it 15-20cms every turn, super fast, some open portions, some fairly tight tree sections and some rock sections at the top, berms and bowls to hack at, in a word: awesome.  We finished the run at the bottom of a valley and started to follow the other tracks out.  I got motivated and decided to hike up in some footsteps to the top of the hill on the other side to see if I could make it from there back to the lifts.

The hike was ok until the last 50m or so, lugging 115kgs up an incline that required me to use my board as an ice axe just about gave me a heart attack.  It was worth it in the end as I got 5-6 turns in and a “free” ride back to the lifts, was nice sailing past my mate still trudging in the flats!

Up until that point we were still a little hopeful of scoring some free on snow accom though a friend of the mate I was with but we couldnt get in contact with the friend so we bit the bullet and committed to the camping idea.  We found the camp ground near Guthega without any dramas and set up the tent before heading into Jindy for dinner and a couple of beverages.

Our camp set up and my mate struggling with his air bed, I have a clark rubber 120mm thick double mattress so no such dramas for me.

In Jindy hit up the Banjo for dinner, had been trying to catch up with Caboose during the day on the slopes but finally caught up with him and a chick my mate knew whose down there for the season for dinner .  Couple of beers, a chicken parma cholesterol king meal and good company and then back to the tent….......................

To be honest there wasn’t a great deal of thought or planning involved in the camping side of things.  Next time I want a chair and some dry firewood, as it was we were lucky enough to have one beer with some other campers who had a fire but would have been nice to have our own.  Got into the tent at about 8:30 and started pissing ourselves laughing looking at the thermostat my mate had with him, it was -1 inside the tent.

I ended up using my sleeping bag as a doona, I get way to claustro in the bag to sleep, over that I had a polish winter doona and those two in conjunction with my thermals, socks and some t shirts kept me very warm indeed.  I was fine and my mate woulda been apart from my snoring which he described as being like trying to sleep next to a diesel generator or something like that.

Woke up the next day and discovered that putting away a tent while it’s snowing is very unpleasant but we got it done without losing any fingers to frostbite.  Headed around to front valley early and got a carpark and some atrocious brekky before heading up the hill.  We spent a fair bit of time in the Liechhardt park which I really liked a lot.  Apparently the jump line is 22, 26 and 28ft, knuckled everyone of them the first time but was sweet after that.

had a crack at the front valley park and despite the first jump being a so called 30fter I knuckled it fairly badly, the snow in the run in seemed really slow and kinda slushy so I don’t think that helped.  After that fairly ordinary start I gave the rest a wide berth and went elsewhere to wind up the day around 1pm.  Home just after 7 very tired but very happy.

Photos aren’t working?

I was at Banjo’s on Saturday night too!

Blizzard, they should be now.

We were only at Banjo’s till about 8pm, we sitting in the brasserie in the front left hand corner, I was wearing a brown lumberjack looking fur lined quiksilver jacket, can’t remember what Caboose was wearing ha ha ha!

Actually now I think about it we probably left closer to 7pm.

Awesome trip report, mate. Great effort with the camping and hiking! 

hows your mate like his board (yes typo)?

used mine for the first time last weekend and i love it!

oh yeh mad trip report also. earning your turns(hiking) is hard work but oh so worth it in the end!

Great report mate

Sound like you had an awesome weekend!

He doesn’t really, he prefers his GNU Carbon Credit, reckons the Yes isn’t stiff enough which I thought was odd as the GNU is basically banana from what I understand. n He’s thinking of selling it actually if anyone is interested I can let him know.

Few more pics from my mates phone

Bottom of the run back to Guthega and the hill opposite I hiked up to get a run back to the lift

The hike back to Guthega if you don’t hike up the other hill

Mt P back to back perisher

Hiking over the back of Mt P

Taking Pics

Looking back to Mt P

Left at 7pm! We were still at Perisher watching the slopestyle! Our dinner booking was for 9:15pm LOL

I woulda died had I been waiting till then, we had been up since 3am, rode all day and I had a burger the size of a 50c piece for lunch so I was a little hungry.  I mowed through that parma in about 5 secs flat.  Caboose had his meal for about 5 mins before me and I finished a good 5 mins before he did.