Another day in paradise.....

21st Feb, 2008

Morning to all back in Oz.

Today was just another brilliant day on the slopes, not a cloud in the sky nor a breath of wind. It was a bit colder than yesterday, but still unseasonably warm and snow is needed desperately. The locals are all complaining how bad the snow is, but to us it's just like a good day back home.

Diane wasn't 100% this morning so Clive, Lorraine and myself headed out at around 9:30. We went straight over to Serwa's, a great long, long cruising green run to blow away the cobwebs. And Sue, yes, green runs are the easier runs, although there is nothing particularly easy about a few of them here.

After the first run down, Lorraine wanted to do it again, so up the Snow Ghost 6-seater we went. I took a video as we went up, but with zoom the quality is not too good, so I'll redo it again later. At the top of the lift I wanted to get a couple of shots of the board. This place is very well organised. At the top of EVERY lift as you get off are giant boards with trail maps and the grooming status of all the runs off that lift and adjacent lifts. It is a brilliant help....




...while Clive and I farted about with gloves etc so we could use the camera, Lorraine took off down Serwa's to get a head start.

After a few minutes we took off after her but she wasn't in sight. Maybe around this corner, no, maybe over this dropoff, no. Finally we caught her but both Clive and I sat back about 30 metres to see how far she would go. About halfway down the run, around the 2km mark, Clive commented he reckons this is a far as Lorraine has ever skied without stopping. On and on she went until it was obvious that she was determined to ski this run top to bottom!!

The final part of the run presents you with this view of three lifts, the left chair is the Plaza Quad which takes you back up to the village, the next one is the Ridge Rocket Quad and the right hand lift is the Snow Ghost 6-seater....



....Lorraine skied down to the lift and let out an almighty cheer. She'd skied the run top to bottom, non stop!!

At the top of the lift I took a happy shot of the proud couple....


We then skied over to the Black Forest area where we skied Millie's Mile, another wide green cruiser with a fairly consistent pitch. For those who know Charlotte's, it is a similar pitch to the run off the T-Bar, except as the name would suggest it is a mile long, although I suspect it is further.

Lorraine decided to rest as her legs were giving her trouble and went and joined Diane in the unit. We arranged to meet for lunch at 1:30pm.

Clive and I then explored. We headed to the T-Bar and the top of the mountain amongst the Snow Ghosts....




The Ghosts are starting to struggle with the warm temps and lack of snow, but high up there are still plenty around.

We decided to tackle the blues. We took off down Powder Gulch, a long wide cruisy bowl. Half way down we were wondering how it was rated blue, it didn't seem any more difficult than some of the greens we had been skiing. We soon found out why!!!! About 400 metres from the end we came to a ridge and the run goes down from there....straight down!! It was very icey where the cover had been scraped off and ridiculously steep for a blue. It would be rated black, even double black in Oz. I doubt we'll be heading back there anytime soon, but if we get some snow between now and when we leave it would prove a good test with a bit of cover and we will try it again.

We met up with the girls for lunch and Lorraine came back out for a couple of runs.

We came upon this run....



....piece of cake, yeah, right!!

All in all a good day was had. We finished the day with a jacuzzi and a few beers, fired up the BBQ on the balcony and had a nice steak meal in the unit.

I did say that Serwa's had some great ski in/ski out accommodation. Check out this video of some of the houses and the pretty scenery of the snow....



Later....