Silly Billies Return to Roam

The forecast lately has been quite wild with some good southerly storms making their way up the country. For the first weekend of the school holidays we decided a mission was in order and luckily our friends Matt and La were keen to tag along. We spent most of Thursday night at my brothers getting absolutely nowhere with planning what to do and where to go. Everyone wanted to do something different and the weather didn't look good for our original plan of a mission in to Barker hut (hopefully with skis). Chris and I are still hooked on the idea of ski tramping, although since breaking my very light weight skis last year he has been a little less ambitious with his ideas. By the end of Friday the weather had changed again, enough to convince us that Barker hut was a go. So we whisked home from school, organised our gear and jumped in the car to collect Matt and Lara. We were taken back to China for a brief period as we stopped at Church corner to sample the menu at Yummy's...

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 ...