Falls Creek Ski Tour 2022 - TawongaHutsDay 3

Tawonga Huts - 3rd Sept.

A light dusting of snow and cold conditions made for a crunchy sounding morning. Up at about 7.50am when Chis got the billy going for a hot cuppa coffee, sitting in the sun sheltered from the wind. A super pleasant way to start the day.

The rest of the group was not up till 9am deciding to have porridge for breakfast and another coffee/tea each. Our day was fairly unplanned other than go ski some gullies. We headed off at around 10:30 heading up the west side of the hut and up a gully.

We made out way eventually to the ridge line that provided a great view across to Mt Hotham (not that you could see it tucked away around a far ridge) and the views of Mt Feathertop were really very breath taking with the sun lighting up the cornice and east facing slopes and the Diamantina spur. It was really quite windy on the ridge so we made our way back down into the shelter of the gullies and finding some great skiing in what was softening snow. The wind on the ridge was punishing chilling exposed areas very quickly - it is easy to see how being poorly dressed could easily lead to hypothermia and disaster.

We blasted down some slopes on the north side and were chased down by the icy crust as it broke loose making a louder and louder clatter behind us as it cascaded down behind us. We skied a bowl for a little while before heading up to the ridge that earlier had been quite wind swept. The wind had abated somewhat as we skied across to the edge of the plateau that had the Fainterfire Track running along it. We had lunch looking across to Mt Feathertop and the Razor back that was absolutely plastered with snow. Off to the north was Mt Jaithmathang - a really more appropriate name than its previous name. We could see the cairn on the top of the mountain. We had a really pleasant lunch in a sheltered spot whilst enjoying the sunshine.

We headed back down the gully to our camp site before heading east up to the memorial cairn well above Tawonga Huts. We skied the skyline and then back down to the pole line and back to the hiuts. Down the way Chis caught an edge doing a turn and proved that the Voile pop bindings do work - which was good to know.

A young family passed the hut and John M chatted with them. We had spoken to the family at Windy Corner on the Thursday. They were off to camp near South Fainter with their 2 young children - clearly very adept skiers and campers. As it turned out we also saw them on our last day at the visitor centre at Windy Corner. They said that they had a great time and it was infact their third time out snow camping.

We finished the day collecting firewood and cleaning the hut up. We started playing 500 leading to a late dinner. We had Indian for dinner with naan bread - another great dinner. We had a great day and really saw only the family in the late afternoon. We had a great couple of games playing 500 and leading to a late night seeing us in bed by 10pm.