14/9/1985 – 15/9/1985 Guthega – Mount Tate return
Kosciuszko National Park, NSW
Ngarigo country
Distance: 11km Total Ascent: 700m Total Descent: 700m
Participants: Greg Christlo, Stephen Davies (Photos, Report), Graeme Hill
Day 1: Saturday 14/9/1985 Guthega Resort – Gills Knob area
This route was reconstructed from memory using Google Earth Pro and GPS Visualizer.
Max elevation: 1773 m
Total climbing: 261 m
Total descent: -129 m
Average speed: nan km/h
Departed Friday 7:00pm in Greg’s car after picking up Graeme (a mechanical engineer with 12 New Zealand mountaineering trips under his belt). It rained all the way down. We put Greg’s tent up in light drizzle arriving at Island Bend at midnight. In prep I’d cooked a couple of carrot cakes, as I was on food duties.
There was no sign of the others (Ian, John Eddy, John Louis), perhaps they had stayed in Egan Street, Cooma overnight.
Saturday morning was still overcast and threatening and it didn’t ease off for breakfast. It was not a cold night at all with three people in the tent.
We drove up to Guthega in light rain. I was very reluctant after all of the wet trips so far this year, to even start. However, they got me going and we climbed up Guthega East Ridge past a group of about 15 people dressed in white costumes practising some turns and making some interesting sounds. It was about two hours to our campsite right on the tree-line, very close to where Peter and I were last year.
Peter & Graham
The snow was slow after four days of steady rain but still remarkably good. Careful selection of slopes resulted in some good runs. North facing slopes were very slow, those facing east and south were OK while a slope just to the north-west was very good.
Appears I have forgotten a lot of the correct techniques for skinny skis. Eventually over the course of the weekend I had figured them out again.
We had the usual ample supply of food. Various cheeses, spreads, breads and biscuits for lunch. Another mild night but sufficiently cold to firm the cover up a bit.
Day 2: Sunday 15/9/1985 Gills Knob – Mount Tate – Guthega
This route was reconstructed from memory using Google Earth Pro and GPS Visualizer.
Max elevation: 2046 m
Total climbing: 440 m
Total descent: -575 m
Average speed: nan km/h
Miracles do occur after all, we awoke to clear blue skies. Then headed straight up the ridge to Mount Tate after a lazy breakfast but it was too late, it was already doing it again. I must listen to the weather reports in the future, it was back to a full and descending cloud cover.
Anyway I corrected my technique by lowering my body position, bending the rear leg and knee, bending the front leg slightly whilst edging the ski, leaning into the turn and quickly bringing the trailing ski back into the neutral position.
We ate especially well again, there were definitely no complaints. Graeme appeared rather “terrified” of going too fast which really fascinated me with his mountaineering experience. Subjective/objective dangers compared with mountaineering activities.
Had numerous runs with the technique back together, again thank goodness.
In fact pretty we were pretty tired by 3:00pm when we left camp. As it was also starting to get cold, I skied out down the Guthega river in a woollen shirt.
The weekend turned out to be very enjoyable despite the inclement weather. In the end we had a minimum of precipitation. The rest of our party failed to turn up.
Left the car park around 6:00pm to arrive home about 11:00pm.
Later investigations (a phone call) revealed that Ian, John Eddy and John Louis had spent Friday night in Cooma. They skied up over Illawong footbridge and camped relatively nearby, on the other side of the ridge from us!
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