26/ 7/1985 – 30/ 7/1985 Guthega Power Station – Disappointment Spur – Grey Mare Hut – Jagungal return
Kosciuszko National Park, NSW
Ngarigo country
Distance: 26km Total Ascent: 2640m Total Descent: 2640m
Participants: Ian Burns, Greg Christlo, Peter Clark, Stephen Davies (Photos, Report), John Eddy, John Graham, John Meehan/Louis
Day 1: Friday 26/07/1985 Guthega Power Station – Disappointment Spur Hut
This route was reconstructed from memory using Google Earth Pro and GPS Visualizer.
Max elevation: 1672 m
Total climbing: 405 m
Total descent: -74 m
Average speed: nan km/h
I headed off in my Gemini with Greg, Greg having prepared the food for our trip. The plan was to meet up with Ian, Graham, Meehan, Eddy and others down there.
After a delayed departure we arrived at midnight to a half moon and light cloud. We geared up and climbed up to Disappointment Spur hut where we arrived at 1:45am. An excellent ski with the moon setting during our the ascent. It would have been even better still if we had been a little earlier to catch a little more moonlight. It was a very calm evening with lots of light allowing us to easily see what we were doing. It was a relaxed hill climb and we had the hut to ourselves.
Day 2: Saturday 27/07/1985 Disappointment Spur Hut – Grey Mare Hut
This route was reconstructed from memory using Google Earth Pro and GPS Visualizer.
Max elevation: 1806 m
Total climbing: 756 m
Total descent: -777 m
Average speed: nan km/h
A big party of nine arrived just as we were having breakfast. They had not sighted John Meehan’s van, so we headed off by ourselves to Grey Mare for what was an excellent day of skiing. It was fine and the snow becoming old. The ski down over the hill from Valentine to the Geehi River was a real bitch. The snow showing no tonal variations at all visually but was either firm ice or powder soft. It was impossible to do anything but side slip down and even then we managed to loose control numerous times as we were getting tripped over by the ground conditions.
We arrived at Grey Mare Hut just before dark about 5:00pm, so we stayed in the hut not being able to sight a good campsite.
About an hour after dark two very interesting photographers (one named Peter) arrived and joined us for the night.
Greg put on an excellent, well thought out seafood mixture for dinner which included prawns, squid and Balmain Bugs.
Day 3: Sunday 28/07/1985 Grey Mare Hut – Jagungal return
This route was reconstructed from memory using Google Earth Pro and GPS Visualizer.
With no sign of the others we were beginning to wonder what had happened to them. We had a cloudless calm day. Greg was keen to wait for the others but I managed to drag him off to towards Jagungal. The snow wasn’t very good with poor grip heading uphill and I was slow striding (due to poor ski gliding) compared to Greg which made it very hard work indeed.
We ran into one other group (of four) who had skied over from O’Keefe’s hut.
The day had turned on us a bit with extremely windy conditions on Jagungal. We did however manage to get a really good ski back down, even though it was a bit inconsistent – crusty, hard, soft and slow.
View from Jagungal 28/7/1985
Jagungal from Strumbo Range 28/7/1985
We arrived back at Grey Mare Hut around dusk having covered about 20km for the day. It was well worth the effort. With a north-westerly blowing and clouds rolling in it wasn’t looking good for tomorrow.
Day 4: Monday 29/07/1985 Grey Mare Hut
What shit-house weather, “house-bound” for the day.
Around lunch time the rest of our party rolled in. They were tired on their arrival yesterday and had followed the creek straight up past the hut to their campsite. Today they had come down as we were collecting firewood with the photographers. They had lunch and stayed a while.
We went back up with them to visit their campsite which would probably be excellent in better weather. They were surrounded by an ample supply of dead wood and fresh running water nearby, as well as some good slopes for a few turns. Today the visibility was so poor and the winds strong so we headed back down to the hut almost straight away. The snow was freshly fallen and of good quality, it was just a shame we couldn’t see enough to take advantage of it. We had lots of crashes, beginners again. We perservered for a short time before retiring to the hut.
Day 5: Tuesday 30/07/1985 Grey Mare Hut – Guthega Power Station
This route was reconstructed from memory using Google Earth Pro and GPS Visualizer.
Max elevation: 1813 m
Total climbing: 781 m
Total descent: -1089 m
Average speed: nan km/h
It was still snowing and looking anything but pleasant but we needed to go home. So Greg, John Eddy and myself headed off about 10:00am (as usual).
It didn’t take very long for John to show us his style, which was really good, including a bit of skating with his full pack on. Shortly thereafter, however, he skied off a cornice he couldn’t see and fell about 4m. Fortunately not doing any damage.
Travelling was not at all cold, indeed it was hot work ascending sections over towards Valentine where we found two people holed up for the day but after a quick snack we continued. At Schlink Hut for lunch with two couples who had not ventured out at all during the morning. The snow was fantastic and sliding through it was indeed a real pleasure. This ensured a quick run back down to the cars before we headed home. I had John to Wollongong station for the train back to Sydney at 11:00pm.
Clickable icons on a world map which open the related trip report
A detailed, searchable trip list with links to reports, photo galleries and other content
