Wednesday 21/09/2022 Charlotte Pass – Summit Walk – Snowy River – Club Lake Creek – Club Lake – Mount Clarke – Clarke East Ridge
Kosciuszko National Park, NSW
Ngarigo Country
Participants: Jean Cane, Stephen Davies (Leader, Report, Photos), Sue Davies, Terry Gralton, John Michan, Junko Toro, Susan Watson
Apparently, we had already used up our quota of great weather as today was overcast and windy and the outlook for the rest of the week was wet. Our New South Wales Nordic Ski Club trip target today was Club Lake, via the snow bridge we had crossed yesterday, avoiding any chance of getting wet feet in the Snowy River at Foremans Crossing. From here we planned to follow the Snowy River and then Club Lake Creek until we reached Club Lake.
Max elevation: 2097 m
Total climbing: 958 m
Total descent: -955 m
Average speed: 5.42 km/h
Total time: 06:12:20
Our party of seven were away around 9:00am, again sidling across the downhill slopes to Charlotte Pass, then following the “road” for about 2km up towards Mount Kosciusko before heading down to our snow bridge to cross the Snowy River. The snow was great, firm for an easy glide but soft enough to easily take an edge for turning.
Here some of us took a should break whilst a couple of us climbed part of the way up Clarke East Ridge to get some turns in. Everybody bar myself was successful on the downhill leg. I, having only this morning discovered how to loosen the tension on my new cable bindings had loosened them enormously to confirm that the previous two days of abject failure with telemark turns were in fact due to the bindings being far too tight. This had resulted in my trailing ski always wanting to maintain a T shape with my leg when turning, which proved nigh-on impossible. My loosening worked wonders, suddenly I could ski again! That lasted for half a dozen turns before my left ski came off mid-turn. I somehow ended up twisted side-on with my left leg dangling from the safety strap, the ski tail embedded near vertically with the second ski twisted around that foot. Lesson learnt, don’t have the cable tension too low either! After untangling myself I gingerly returned to the snow bridge before we continued down along the Snowy River.
Most notable along the river was the height of the cornices along its western bank, they seemed significantly taller than normal. This did provide a couple of good photo opportunities.
Club Lake Creek was still mostly covered with only a few sections of open water along the way. By the time we made our approach to the climb towards Club Lake the clouds were thick enough to have really flattened out the lighting on the snow surface, we needed to remain vigilant as we progressed, trying to pick out subtle variations in surface tone or even insects on the snow to judge its contours and look for holes.
I was quite stunned by the vast quantity of snow across the peaks and their flanks. The rocky ridges below above Club Lake were almost under and almost all of the eastern-facing slopes were mostly a uniform, smooth white tone.
Before the climb, we had picked out a rock outcrop just above Club Lake to its west as our destination. The flat lighting and uniform appearance of the snow proved very deceptive to a couple of people in our party who hadn’t been there before, as they commented on the climb being a lot longer than it seemed to be from the bottom.
Once at the rocky outcrop, we added a few layers of clothing as it was now quite windy and cold now we had stopped climbing. We also quickly found ourselves sitting in the sheltered lee side for a quick lunch break. Another of our New South Wales Nordic Ski Club groups had taken the same route across the snow bridge before climbing Mounts Clarke, Northcote and Lee. They appeared above us descending Mount Lee during our break before heading straight down into Club Lake for their break.
After admiring the views and clicking back into our bindings we split into two groups. Half of us headed straight back down for a few turns and the rest went around and down to Club Lake before following Club Lake Creek to meet us again at the bottom of the hill.
Jean climbing Mount Clarke
At the base of Mount Clarkes north-east ridge, I offered the option of returning the way we had come or climbing Mount Clarke to take in the views and get another downhill run towards our snow bridge. Susan and Terry opted for the morning route whilst the rest of us headed upwards. Again, awesome views from the top were enjoyed by all as was the long downhill ski to the snow bridge. From our descent, we saw the other group and Susan and Terry almost back to the road.
We were all happy the snow bridge was still structurally sound as we began our climb back to the road and headed “home”.
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