Falls Creek Ski Tour 2022

The plan for the trip took off back in June when Greg devised a clever plan to take in the best of the Falls Creek back country. Different to the usual eastern side of Falls Creek. As Dodgey we had rarely spent much time over on the Tawonga Hits side of Falls Creek. This is our trip and we were fortunate enough to have brilliant weather and great snow cover for the whole trip.

Here is our photo gallery.

Melbourne to Bright - 31st July.

A leisurely start to the trip with the plan to meet John B and John M in Seymore at the pie shop for lunch. Excellent pies, pastries, sausage rolls and coffee's all round. Wednesday was a sensational day weather wise, sunny and worm for the last day of winter. We made our way to Bright, little traffic on the road. We stayed at the caravan park that we stayed in for the Dodgey bike ride.

Dinner was at the Bright brewery, a few beers each and burgers, trout and riblet for dinner. We were dinking a variety of beers including one called Blow hard which we were doing the next day as we climbed out from the bottom of the Ruined Castle run. We had the earliest night. We checked that the packs were correctly packed with the addition of approximately 7kg of food.

Falls Creek Village to Tawonga Huts - 1st Sept.

The day started earlyish - around 7am. We had breakie in the caravan park to save time and left the park at 7.45am arriving at Mt Beauty bus deport for our 9.30am bus up to Fall creek. It is really the most sensible way to go as you don't have to worry about chains, entry fees, parking and the drive up and down. All of our gear fitted in easily to the bus and we wore our track gear in the bus. Forty five minutes later we arrived at Fall Creek Village. A courtesy bus took us to Windy Corner and we were on our way by about 11am. We had a sunny day with light winds.

The snow conditions could not have been better - soft snow and heaps of it. We followed the road that took us along the bottom of the ski runs on the south side of the resort - the Ruined Castle, Towers, Drovers Dream side. Following the Sun Valley Loop through to Boomerang Link eventually upto Cattle grid, eventually taking us out of the patrolled area. We skied down Pretty Valley Rd and eventually arrived at Pretty Valley Hut. Along the way whilst we had our budgie bar break on Boomerang Link we saw an echidna waddling up the snow slope looking for food. It was a big echidna. We were certainly feeling the lack of practice and fitness - after several years of Covid lock down it was good to be out and about. We were drinking the appropriate beer at the Bright brewery called Blow Hard. We were blowing hard on the climb upto Cattle grid. Once on the other side of the saddle we lost sight of the last of the Falls Creek chair lifts.

We met several skiers returning back to Falls creek. We arrived at Pretty Valley Hut at about 1.30pm for lunch. The hut is pretty small but fine to stop in and have lunch. Anymore than 6 people in the hut and it would have been super crowded.

Heading out from pretty Valley Hut we made our way down to the start of the dam. We needed to take our skies off to cross the causeway. It was a steady grind following the Fainter Firetrail up to the Ben Cooper Memorial Cairn. We were on the downhill run to Tawonga huts. The snow was very soft and in some parts difficult to ski because occassionally your ski just sunk into the snow with the ski down not without its challenges. We made our way down to the hut incident free.

There are a series of huts, one with bunks, one with a internal combustion stove, a burnt out shed, other shed on the other side of the creek and a toilet shed. All in all a great site and great camp sites that provided shelter from the prevailing winds, not that they were particularly strong. Unfortunately there was no saw - making it difficult to cut wood to fit in the heater. We set up our tents for the night - they would certainly be warmer that the bunk hut.

We got water, fixed broken tent poles and set the fire. With the fire going the hut heated up pretty quickly and was very pleasant and also allowed us to dry damp clothing. John B, Greg and John M cooked dinner - we had Thai Green Chicken Curry. It was a hardish day for some of us and it was great to be able to finish the day off.

I'm pretty sure we will all sleep well tonight heading off to bed by about 9.30pm

Tawonga Huts - 2nd Sept.

A calm night with mild breezes and reasonably pleasant temperatures. We had a late start not getting up till about 8am when the sun finally hit our tent. Lots of crows in the morning with their raucous calls and the occasional magpie and currawong calls. The crows being the most noisy.

An easy breakfast of muesli, followed by some packing for lunch as we had decided that we would head off to Mt Fainter in the distance. We left our run a bit too late, at 11:20am  as we would later find out as we progressively made our way up to Mt Fainter. We followed the 4WD track up and away from the hut, losing it due to fallen trees and heavy snow, so we followed the contours along until we eventually re-joined the track. The going was pretty easy with great snow and lovely sun shine with most of us stripping down to our base layers.

We eventually made to a ridge line where we had view of South and North Fainter - we realised that we were not going to make it to Mt Fainter and still have sufficient light to make it back to camp - so we stopped to take in the views and also to have lunch, bit without a knife to cut the cheese, salami and cucumber we broke these into even chunks and eat them old style, bite of salami, bite of cheese, bite of wrap, bite of cucumber. The view that we had during lunch was really great - just looking over to Fainter and beyond to Bogong.

After lunch, photos and phone calls we headed back down the way we came, it was a fast trip back to the huts - on the way down we got hit by a very light blow of iciles. We got back to the huts by about 4 to 4.30pm. After some water collecting, firewood gathering and water heating we settled into a nice cuppa tea and some of the left short breads.

Fire going and dinner making underway - an excellent lamb casserole with freeze dried potatoes, peas and shitake mushrooms. It was a super tasty meals and appreciated after out day out and about.

The wind had blown up over night, clear skies but a lot colder than last night. We were figuring out what to do on our next day, but we had decided that we will have another night at Tawonga Huts before heading off to Weston's Hut. In hind sight this was a good decision.

It was a really pleasant day, lovely and sunny - as the slopes went into the shade they started to go icy, so it was good to turn around when we did as opposed to pushing on to the Mt Fainter summit.

Once again into bead b about 9.30pm.

All in all it was a good day albeit cold night - so much so that we all felt the cold at night, lots of spindrift and a fairly blowy night, out tents in the shelter of the trees meant we heard the wind more than felt it. The water bag that JB had left out that was full of water - about 8 liters, was frozen solid in the morning - very funny.

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.

Tawonga Huts to Weston's Hut - 4th Sept

Another picture perfect day - no wind, sun shinning and warm. We were up again by about 7.45am. Once again making a billy of water for teas and coffees. Not too many crows this morning and we were treated by seeing a Flame Robin and some Robin red Breasts - really very spectacular birds to see.

We got going at around 10am - leaving enough time for the snow to soften a bot to make the climb out from Tawonga Huts up to the Fainter Fire Track a bit easier. It was still a bit icy in the shady parts of the track, but once we got into the sun the going was easier and we made good time back to the ridge line and turning west we followed the ridge for a bit. At the top of the ride near where the pole line plunges down to Tawonga Huts we stopped to do a field repair on one of John M Fischer boots were the rubber on the toe box was coming away from the upper of the shoe - a common problem with these boots according to the web based forums. Boot fixed and budgie bar had progressed to where we had a straight line to My Jim. Dropping our packs we headed off to Mt Jim for a quick blast, had a look around and then headed back for lunch by about 1pm. After lunch Greg B, John B and Chis headed down a gully for a nice long run to the bottom, cutting a lot of figure of 8 on the way down. John M had a nap. Of course the worst thing about skiing down a gully is that you need to climb back out of it, that said it was great to do some skiing on great snow without back packs.

Weston's Hut was a little hard to find as the track and pole line becomes a little indistinct especially once you have gone off track a little. The skiing towards the end also got a little harder and for the last 300 meters or so it was skis off and walk down to the hut. We arrived at Weston's Hut at about 3pm. It's a lovely hut, but the sort of hut that is mor eon the way rather than a destination hut. We f=cut fire wood, fixed the past on the verandah and also fixed the hammer.

The hut is little visited during winter with our group being only the second group to visit so far in the winter of 22. The number of visitors during summer on the other hand is huge - just counting through the log book there were about 20 different groups going through in just December 21.

Having settled into the hut for the evening we had some soup, dinner and dessert with port - we were fairly safe in thinking that no-one would be joining us over the next couple of nights in the hut.

Another great round of 500 was played before we headed off to bed.

Weston's Hut - 5th Sept

Today was a semi industrious day. Waking up at 8am and starting the day with a hot cuppa coffee, Chis found a stump to sit on in the sun watching the sun progressively light up Mt Feathertop off in the distance. It looked to be a nice day despite the weather forecast.

Sitting on my log in the snow drinking my coffee, it soon started to snow lightly. the tone of the day was set - sunshine, cloud, some light snow - repeat. Maybe the weather forecast was correct after all.

We spent the day doing jobs around the hut, cutting wood, unblocking the pipe to provide fresh running water to the hut.

We spoke of arty things and places like Mona and the types of art there. the edgey, the classic, the clever and the experimental. 

We had an easy lunch at the hut followed by an easy dinner and more 500.

Tomorrow we head off to Pretty Valley Hut - a 14km journey.

Weston's Hut to Pretty Valley Hut - 6th Sept

An early morning for Chis - up at 7am with the billy on the boil.

We did not want to start too early as the walk out from Weston's to the start of the pole line would have been too icy - OK for Greg B and John B with their skins but not so great for John M and Chis. John M and Chis set off early. Getting to where John M and I had left our skis was easier than had been thought - this was due to Greg B going up the day before when the snow was soft and stomping foot holes into the soft snow the previous day. We basically had a ready made set of step holes to follow up. Walking past the pole line was a bit more difficult, but made easier as the sun had started to soften up the snow. Eventually we reached a point where we could put our skis on and could easily ski back up to the Fainter fire track. John M and Chis waited till Greg B and John B finally caught up with us. We decided to have our budgie bar before pushing on towards Cope saddle. The day was again another blue bird day.

We pushed on heading past Cope Saddle and towards the SEC hut. The snow was getting a little patchy but in large well covered. We stopped for lunch a couple of hundred meters from the SEC hut in a heathy patch under a couple of trees.

Along the way we chatted to a lady who had driven up from Bright to do some skate skiing - she was doing a loop out from falls and was going back via the aqueduct past Cope Hut and the Rover Chalete.

During the afternoon I was called by a recruiter urgently wanting to set up an interview either on the day or the next day. After explaining that I would check the reception at our camp for the night, the interview was setup for a time the following morning - with the client not really wanting to wait till Friday when I would be back home. I eventually cancelled the interview due to poor reception that I got at Pretty Valley Hut. 

It was an easy ski to Pretty Valley Hut from our lunch spot. Approaching the hut we found that there were a couple of other campers who were on their way back to Falls Creek. There was a couple in a great Hilleberg tent and a semi retired gent called Kerry who was out skiing by himself.

Setting up our tents we then found some water and after the others had finished cooking their meals in the hut we setup and cooked our dinner - Pasta. There was a small pot belly stove in the hut and it really heated up the hut - to hot infact.

Pasta for dinner was prepared and enjoyed. Our last dinner on the snow before heading to Bright the following day. It was not too cold overnight and a little rain/sleet meant that the snow would not freeze solid which was great. 

Pretty Valley Hut to Falls Creek - 7th Sept

A bit of a sleep in on our last day. We had 6km to ski from Pretty Valley Hut to Falls Creek. We had to be at the bus stop for a 3.20pm pick up.

So thinking about getting up then hearing rain on the tent promptly stopped any thoughts of getting up. We did not emerge till about 9am. The toilet block was about 500 meters from the camp site. Parks really needs to install another one closer to Pretty Valley Hut.

As we were packing up a whole bunch of SES and police arrived to get signed off on Skiddoos, how to read the terrain to avoid falling into soft snow and streamlets. There would have been about a dozen skiddoos there - they all headed out in the direction of the SEC hut returning an hour later as we were about to head off - unfortunately no offers of do you need a lift - oh well.

Leaving the camp site at around 11am proved to be a good move as the snow had softened a lot making it easy to get grip off our skis. We made our way to the top of Cattle grid before blasting down Boomerang Link. The ski down Boomerang Link and onto Sun Valley Road was great with silky snow helped by the graders having earlier groomed the track fro skaters.

We were back in the resort and patrolled areas skiing along the bottom of runs like Ruined Castle, Drovers Dream and other runs that ended down at Sun Valley Road. We were planning on having lunch at some stone cottage that John B seemed to remember, but was in fact a toilet block so we pushed onto Windy Corner. Taking a wrong track we steadily climbed until we hit some down hot ski runs. the track we were on was nicely groomed and well covered with snow - so we shushed down to the aqueduct were we bumped into some Rovers who were leaving the Rover Chalet.

Eventually we got to Windy Corner and had our lunch in the visitors centre. I got the guys coffees and a tea and we had our track lunch. Before the bus arrived we played a few hands of 500 as a large school group who had come up from Deniliquin entered the visitor centre for their lunch. 

As we were waiting for the shuttle bus service to take us back to the Village, the falls Creek Primary school who were finishing their PE lesson - X country skiing. They joined us for the bus trip down. Asking them about their skiing they were super enthusiastic in telling us about how the could ski double black diamond runs and theta they were not allowed to try telemark turns just yet. A really delightful bunch of young people.

As we were being driven off the mountain back to Mt beauty it started to rain as if on queue and in alignment with the weather forecast. Collecting cars and returning back to bright it was great to get in under a shower and wash off the past 7 days of sweat and sun screen. We had a couple of beers before heading off to Soul e Luna for a lovely dinner.

A great nights sleep in a comfy bead before our return back to Melbourne.

Overall the trip was excellent despite the first days discomfort of not having skied for a while, not been track fit and having to carry a heavy back pack. We had excellent snow cover and beautiful sunny clear days with really little to no wind.

The menu prep by Greg B was brilliant with the food easy to prepare, tasty and in sufficient quantities. The return trip back to Pretty valley Hut took the sting out of the last day by only having to ski 6km as opposed from Westin's hut back to Pretty Valley Hut. All of the side trips we did were great and excellent skiing was had in many of the sun lit gullies.

This was the dinner menu that we had over the 7 days of skiing. It feed 4 people.

INDIA – Kerala Fish Curry with Rice