Tuesday 17/09/2019 Charlotte Pass – Seamans Hut
Kosciuszko National Park, NSW
Ngarigo country
Participants: Angela Barton, Helen Cromb, Stephen Davies (Photos, Report), Tim Hager (Leader), Kathy Husselbee, Ken Moylan, Gordon Newell, Jean
After sitting out a day of wind and rain yesterday we were pleased to see a dusting of fresh snow this morning. Tim suggested a day trip to Lake Albina which attracted a group of nine. We headed out under a low cloud cover shortly after 9:00am.
Max elevation: 2044 m
Total climbing: 770 m
Total descent: -782 m
Average speed: 5.76 km/h
Total time: 05:39:00
The short traverse across the downhill runs to Charlotte Pass saddle had us on the snow poled Summit Walk pole line after about 15 minutes. Our planned route would take us about 3km along the road before heading west towards Muellers Peak. The snow was firm with thin patches of windblown snow and readily accepted our ski edges, good touring conditions. On reaching the designated turn-off point I continued up the road a little further than the rest of the group to get a fall line run down to the Snowy River. By now the lower clouds had made the lighting very flat indeed. After removing my skins and starting my downhill run I immediately became situationally unaware and found myself sitting on the snow midway through my first turn, couldn’t quite tell the ups from the downs! Once down near the Snowy River I found our group was already heading back towards me, they had wisely decided with not to proceed to Lake Albina in such poor visibility.
Synchronised skiing along Kosciuszko Road
We now headed back onto the Summit Walk pole line to initiate Plan B, Seamans Hut. The poor visibility continued all the way to the hut. Seeking shelter inside for lunch we all started to cool off quickly, down jackets came out, mittens and beanies put on as it was significantly colder inside that out!
After our brief lunch we were back onto the Summit Walk pole line heading back. With a mostly gradual descent this was much faster than on our way up and it didn’t seem long until we had the Kangaroo Ridge Triple Chairlift at Charlotte Pass in view. From here I took a run down towards the Snowy River before skinning up to the top of the Kangaroo Ridge Triple Chairlift, whilst everyone else went directly to the chair lift. The run down to the river had been good as the visibility had improved a lot from early in the day. The run down through the resort was, however, the best run of the day as with very few people on the lifts there was still a lot of untracked snow to ski.
Despite not reaching Lake Albina we had certainly not missed anything. Another party from our lodge had tried their luck on the slopes of Carruthers Peak but had also turned back early due to poor visibility. Ironically, once back in Southern Alps Lodge the clouds started to part and there was plenty of blue sky, timing is everything!
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