After our wet and semi-successful trip to the Main Range we were hungry for some BC skiing with the 2 essential ingredients – sunshine and corn snow.
The long weekend of 25-27th September looked the goods so we re-loaded and got organised for a Bogong trip via Eskdale Spur. Unfortunately Dave’s work schedule didn’t coincide but the rest of the gang was in attendance. Shannon and I drove up early on Thursday and made the leisurely walk up in the early afternoon sun. Matt was a little behind and Micky & Stumpfy drove up after work with a night hike planned.
Our plan was to camp at Granite Flat – Shannon and I were there first but the winds increased so even though we got my tent up, by the time Matt arrived around dusk they had increased too much and we were forced to make the small retreat down to the more sheltered area around Michell Hut. It’s a shame as Michell hut was a bit of a zoo with a couple of big groups of hikers present.
The wind was still in force on Friday and we managed a few runs around the Eskdale Spur area but it was too strong to go up & over the mountain safely.
Saturday however was a different story. We made the walk up from Michell Hut to the near the Summit, where I spied a familiar looking group in the distance, so I toured over and it turned out to be Buller crew Jock and Campbell and their friend Alex. Jock and I had long talked about skiing Bogong together so it was awesome to see him, plus we definitely benefited from his encyclopaedic knowledge of the area.
He took us straight in to the chutes of Cairn Gully which is the prize area of skiing on Bogong. The snow was absolutely perfect and we had a number of runs in these epic steeps.
After skiing we were invited to a Apres/dinner party at their Granite Flat campsite – they came up later than us after the wind subsided. So we dropped our gear off at our tents, brought our stoves and food up and had a great session watching the sun set.
Sunday dawned the same as Saturday again with perfect conditions so we decided to explore the Audax area – as with Cairn Gully the day before each run we did was a steep chute in perfect corn snow. If had the ability to order conditions I wouldn’t have been this greedy.
Audax is a somewhat obscured but fantastic east-facing bowl and has the potential for a very long run in mid-winter conditions. Also after the technical snafu the day before Alex got the drone sorted and we got some great footage of us skiing.
After a few laps in Audax it was time to head down, pack up, walk down to the cars and head back to Melbourne.
A perfect trip.
