Silly Billies Return to Roam

Skinning up towards the Metelille Glacier, Mt Cook Week two of the school holidays and it was time for another adventure. We were supposed to be organising the National Ski Orienteering Champs at the Snow Farm in Wanaka – but there had been so little snow we thought perhaps we should call it off. After a quick phone call to the Snow Farm however, we were assured that there was enough snow to run the ski orienteering. This gave us a timeframe – we would need to be ready with courses planned by Friday morning. It was only Monday, so surely that was plenty of time to squeeze in a trip. We decided to head down to Mt Cook, and Joe decided to join us too. After a bit of reading and consultation with CMC gurus we decided a ski trip to Barron Saddle sounded like a cool challenge for us. Leaving Christchurch late on Monday night we drove South laden with gear. We crept into the Wyn Irwin Lodge at 1pm, and marvelled at the fluffy snow lying all around. In the morning it was ver

SkiTramping down the White Glacier to Barker Hut! After a long and rather dark term (interspersed with some good wee weekend missions which I have failed miserably to blog about) the school holidays finally arrived! The snow forecast had been dry and hopeless, but my hopes went up on the blustery cold Wednesday Run with a Southery front in full force just a few days before the holidays were about to start... Which turned into not much. However, on Friday night we witnessed a large high settling itself over New Zealand. This was good. But Chris needed to do a not very overdue tax return, sigh. So Saturday saw Chris taxing and both of us scheming. After several hours of intensive excitment the tax was done, a mammmoth winter mission in Arthurs Pass planned out and a huge amount of gear loaded into the car. We planned to carry: 5 days food Skis and ski boots Glacier gear - rope and harness + prussicks Avalanche trancievers, shovel and spade each Crampons, ice axes Tramping boots