Slipping and sliding and storms and things

The weather has really been the big topic for discussion for the last several weeks, with the chatter initially being about the snow not coming.

Well historically we've always been lucky if it came before the old school holiday's mid term break, but no, marketing spin-doctors steal the show. But now the spell is broken and it's been dumping especially in the Southern Alps.

I've been happy to have had my first wee nordic ski on Sunday, between fronts and before the area opens to the public.

The spindrift was inspiring...


My friend Karl does some packing, thinking it's good to use 8 ton of groomer opportunistically, before the next metre arrives in a few hours...


I think I'm smiling - my first day out on skis - my 44th NZ winter season tearing it up. I'm incredibly grateful the years and follies have treated me well...


Only an hour after this shot, the next front was upon us...


On driving off I noticed no one bothered to dig this one out from the previous dump...


But my turn came down the hill as the storm progressed! I slid/parked here to help two cars in the ditch well to the right...


It's a bit of a story:

Then the big camper you can see above on the right, came down and started sliding way up the road - it sailed alongside and miraculously snuck into the space between me and the two cars! All had chains on and all impacted at about 35 degrees to the drifts. No damage to any, better yet no souls harmed not withstanding some falling over and landing heavily.

So while trying to get it all sorted out.. well actually I just txtd them up the hill and asked for a grader.

So in a few minutes an old mate Rosco who works up there arrived in another Land Cruiser like mine with tractor-like lock diffs. It was nice to see a familiar face! So we considered pulling me out as I could not go forward, but frankly you could not even stand on the road in the picture without sliding. And me being near 3 ton and his maybe 2.5 - we deferred that decision!

It then became quite a problem to stop others coming anywhere near us. Those that did we told them to keep seriously to the right and not attempt to stop. Try that on ice - walking alongside giving instructions through their windows

Then another mate John came in a grader [by this time it's dark] and soon all were towed out, leaving me enough room to drive out [actually seemed less scary to not be towed].

So we headed down into the growing dark...


In the old days it was like right now... deep snow is right down to the valley floor.

So modern day skiers of say several years experience have chains, but obviously on Sunday did not know how to drive to the camber and what grit there is. Easy to be critical after 43 winters, but we still have to learn. It's been so long the lessons came my way as well!

As I post this we're between fronts again so I had a walk to town...


But there is more to come - just look west and marvel at it all, and how each snowflake has fallen in it's proper appointed place...


PS Readers are telling me they can't leave comments. Something has broken at Google's end. I've tried resetting to no avail. Watch this space - a rebuild and upgrade has already started. We're moving to my beloved WordPress platform.