Instilled with a sense of confidence from skiing successfully yesterday, I headed up with the intention of skiing along the tops of the ridges from Karels T-bar to Leatherbarrel creek, over to twin humps and back to Thredbo.
Unfortunately, upon cresting North Ramshead, I entered the wind machine and very strong south-easterly winds roared down from North Ramshead penetrating all the way to the creekbed and doing a number on the snow conditions. Punchy, breakable crust or sustrugi were the snow conditions today. Difficult to find any protected snow.
The best skiing today would have been South Ramshead down to treeline. With the warm day, below treeline the snow was heavy and not enjoyable.
I made a hasty retreat from leatherbarrel creek and headed back to thredbo via a side trip to the summit of Saturday peak.
The lack of exercise these last 3 months have done a number on me, combined with yesterdays efforts, the 600 vertical metres of climbing today has tired me out. Multiple days of 2000+ vertical metres seems a fair way off.
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Keep it up Joel
It won’t be long and you will be back to form. Got to tell you I have skied that route under those conditions so many time not missing it at all