13/07/1985 Smiggins Holes – Mount Piper
Kosciuszko National Park, NSW
Ngarigo country
Participant: Stephen Davies (Report)
This was a planned tryout trip for the recently bought ski mountaineering ski and plastic boots.
I walked up Crown St in full ski attire and carrying a daypack, alpine skis and duvet. There were only 15 people on the bus allowing plenty of room to spread out on the way down. It was very very cold in the bus, the down duvet being just enough to keep warm. I would have been better off in a sleeping bag. The seats didn’t recline very far making for an uncomfortable trip.
Arrived at Smiggins at 9:15am after a breakfast stop in Jindabyne. The sky was clear and air still but there was bugger-all snow and lots of grassy patches on most runs. Did some falling over, as usual, on the first two runs but then started to get the hang of both the boots and ski combination and icy conditions on the slopes. I found it very very easy (too easy?) to turn, even without baskets on my stocks, which both came off in the first half-dozen turns. Managed to find both of these eventually, several runs later. The $17 half day ticket only took me to 12:30pm, what a rip-off.
I then headed off-piste and tried the new bindings in X-C mode after a quick lunch over at Mount Piper. The skins worked well straight uphill but the fibre of the skins are not adequately aligned parallel to the ski edges preventing their downhill running or walking/slide motion. The skis proved very slippery along flats due to the fresh hot waxing on their base.
I only just made it back to the bus in time for departure at 3:00pm. We arrived home at 11:00pm. Overall it proved to be a worthwhile exercise.
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