Mt Hutt

Still here at the keyboard in Sydney.
Incidentally, the difference in attitudes of the Oz peeps & the Kiwi peeps is noticeable. Much less friendly & helpful at this airport !


Lee arranged for me to go up the mountain with mate Jonno, whose parents are Dutch. This explains why they were all watching a Dutch film when I got in the night before. Dean from Ashburton was also in the car, & all 3 smoked. At least they opened the windows.

Anyway, Jonno drove & skidded up the mountain road at a great rate - it was supposed to be a 40 limit, but he was doing >60 at 1 point. He also overtook a bus & 4 cars on the straight bits - he obviously knows the road! ! !

In the top pic, Jonno's in the red hat & Lee's in the shorts. I told you there was a plethora of short wearing peeps here!

After getting skis & pass I went up the Summit 6-man chair, & the next 2 are views from the top.

The river is the Rakaia - where I'd taken pics the day before.You can see the sea, too, & Christchurch is just off shot on the left.

The glove is for a bit of perspective of the drop off onto Hubers Run - mmmm

On the chair I chatted to another local up for a Sunday's ski. I kept bumping into him all day as we skied at a similar speed.


The 3rd is a view of Hubers & Fascination from the 6-man, & the 4th someone dropping off down Hubers.


After starting on Fascination, I worked across from Hubers, skiing the left, central & right of the run (looking downhill), then doing the same on Fascination.

Next I did the bumps down the far R before heading off up the quad chair & doing Exhibition Bowl, a black down to base. It was great, nice & steep, lovely snow & a gulley at the bottom :-))

There's a pic of the bump run by Fascination - they weren't that big, & fairly even, so no mishaps, like at Treble Cone ;-P

Then I did Morning Glory & Wayleggo a couple of times, & hung around near the Terrain Park where an Arials contest was being held.


Skiers & boarders were jumping off a couple of ramps.


You can see they got pretty high!

The next one's looking over the back - the skiing's mainly down the eastern area, which is why you got to see the sea in the first few pics!


Aoraki / Mt Cook is out there somewhere?

I then decided to do some of the difficult runs down the south face.


There is a gate you ski through, & there are a quite a lot of signs dotted about warning you it's expert terrain.

Then there's a pic of my pole which went valleywards when I stopped to take a pic.


I'm glad it stopped only a few turns down.


I didn't fancy skiing the whole run with 1 pole, as it was steepish & the snow was pretty cruddy in places.

The next is a pic of the same run (off the Towers), & you can get an idea how big it was by the little blokes skiing down!


It was where I'd stopped to retrieve my pole




I just deleted 1 getting ready to publish, & lost track of which 1. I'm sure you'll get the gist, though?

Next ditto, looking up from where I'd stopped to get my pole, & again, the 2 little figures give some perspective of the size & steepness.


I'd hung around for a few min waiting for skiers to come!


There were very few boarders this side - too bumpy !


Boarders like steep & deeps & not moguls as a rule.

Then there's 1 of the 2 blokes skiing down.
His mate's on the left, as well.
You can just see his arm & pole

The next is from my 2nd run down the Towers after going to the bottom on International, up the Triple chair, down Fascination & Exhibition again (I kept doing it because it was fun!), & up the 6-man.


I did 7 runs over this side - 2 before lunch & the other 5 after.


I found different ways back to the bottom of the Triple - some brill, some downright nasty.


I only sat down once, though :-)

In between the shadows you can see the run I did on the 6th time down. It was under the triple chair & quite narrow - one of the nasty ones!

And those are my skis!

The sun moved round - like it does, & this is a long shot of the Towers runs from the Triple chair.


It was taken after the 6th run when I'd decided the legs had had enough & only had 1 more run in them!




Re lunch, I'd packed a picnic, but saw the lamb shanks & chups (chips to us Poms).
I ate them outside on the Terrace. Yum yum
And a brew of course ;-)

I handed back the skis, & as Jonno's deadline of 2.30 had passed, decided to hitch back to Methven.
Only about 10 cars passed before Jonno's car peeped & I didn't recognise him or it. He'd lost the red hat, & his car had gained a roof rack!

That's my excuse, anyway.
I met 2 more Kiwis in the car: Ollie from somewhere I can't read from my notes, & Paul from Hastings - that's on North Island & famous for its wine.

I got Jonno to dump me at the I-Site to see if there was a Mt Hutt patch for my ruckie, but no luck.

Then it was back to Big Tree, load up, & off to Rivendell Lodge in Kimbell.
But that's another story. . .
OAO