FRI - Last Day Ski

  FRIDAY
Very very windy,  Blue Cow closed early.  Left early 1:30pm

6am and Henry's alarm woke us.
Go go packing up.
7:20 we returned the key at the station.
Hurried to catch the train.  zipped past a white Camry that was not too pleased.  Eventually after all this hurry, we concluded that we had actually gotten an earlier than planned train.  Met one legged border (see below)

Sat in Jax.  Walked Phoebe to her lesson.  The wind blew an absolute gale.

Phoebe reported there was some discussion as to what group she should be in.  One option was with a young instructor who took a group up the V8.  Apparantly too much for some and one girl in tears.  Phoebe elected to go with another group and they went to the learner area.  She skid on ice which was scary enough.

Frank, James & Henry took the V8 to the top of front valley and worked our way across to the Mt Perisher tripple.  Three runs down Mount P.  Very windy and cloudy at the top but snow over ice so really nice skiing.  On the third go, we broke off and skiid to Leichart which had quite a queue.  Met Zoe, Jeff & Bruce (whoever they are).  Did a couple of runs and then took the Bull Wheel run across to the top of front valley. 

11:30 lunch in Jax.  Phoebe was a bit stressed from her ice experience and had consumed a chicken pie and arrived at the table at Jax with a bowl of hot chips.  H & F had Kebabs. 

After lunch Phoebe and I walked to the ski tube terminal to take the train to Blue Cow and James and Henry set out to ski to Blue Cow.  The plan had been for Phoebe to continue practicing in a low pressure environment and Frank would join H & J for a last few runs. 

James and Henry reported that as they got off the Interceptor there were signs said it was closed.  They skid down and took the T-Bar up.  At Blue Cow, a rope had been placed to stop people going down.

As Phoebe and I alighted the train, we were accosted by Henry and told to get back on the train.  It appears that James and Henry had stationed each other at each end of the train in order to catch us.  Luckily they caught us because we got seats. 

We took the train all the way to Bullocks Flat.  Henry kept James company in James car and Frank and Phoebe shared Henry's car.  One stop at Cooma to return skis.  In Canberra, we went to woolies and bought ingredients to make spag bog.

 

Phoebe snapped this sunrise at "the station".  It contrasted with the actual weather experined on the mountain which was blowing a gale.

 

 

 

The weather was atrocious.  This is the top of Mount Perisher.

On the train down to Bullocks flat, Phoebe did not want to return her skis.

Packed in at Blue Cow after the the mountain closed.

Ski Tube on the way home

On top of Mount Perisher.

TENACITY
Every now and then one has an inspirational encounter. Today, on the train,  I stood next to and spoke to a one legged snow boarder.  If I lost a leg,  I reckon I'd end up staying home and depressed.  This fellow had only snow boarded once several years ago so effectively had to learn to snow board with a prosthetic leg.   It's also a testament to engineering where some fellow in the USA set about developing prosthetics for action sports.