Snow Hiking!

It was time to get further out into the great outdoors!
Jeff asked me yesterday if I’d like to go up to Cradle Mt to see what it looked like in the snow!
The weather was looking positive, so I jumped on board with the idea, then rang our cousin, Fiona who also keenly joined in the snow party!

We seriously could not have had a better day – sky was clear blue and the snow powdery and beautiful!

We headed up the Horse Track, and back via Marion’s Lookout. A scenic route that had us on the go for about six hours.

It didn’t take us long to have to start shedding the layers… in fact, Fiona was hiking in a singlet top there for a while!

I had gone as far down the clothes scale as I could without hiking in my bra! It really was that hot earlier on in the day!

This is me looking very cool (and not so cold) hiking up the Horse Track

In reality – I fell down a lot!! Some of those drifts were pretty deep and had us floundering about a fair bit!

Today I was head in the blue skies and feet in the snow…

The view at Crater Peak was, as usual, fabulous. We ate lunch up here!

Trudging along towards Cradle to get onto the Overland track, and back via Marion’s Lookout… we were the first along some of the areas – the poles helped our direction but still didn’t help up stay on the track!

I think the snow patterns are as pretty as the sand ones!

Tastes good too…

(Yes – we know this is a no-no, but we weren’t in any sort of hypothermia danger at that point!!)

Beautiful views over past Barn Bluff!
We met a Canadian couple who just set off on doing the Overland Track today! They had a brilliant day to start. I hope they have a wonderful adventure… I am still not 100% convinced I want to do that in the snow.
(We need to get a lot more suitable gear before that happens anyway!)

There is a creek under that snow at the bottom!

By this point the sun was getting lower in the sky and we were putting more clothes back on

It was a bit of a slow descent down Marion’s… mostly because at that point lots more people had been on the track in that area so the packed snow had become icy. However… the trail through the snowy trees was a delight!

Time for a quick ‘Jeff & Lisa’ snap (Thanks Fiona!) where you can see by the colours we were racing the setting sun. Brrrrr

Plenty of fat wombats were out having their breakfast by the time we got back to the Ronnie Creek car park

We got back to the car a bit later than we wanted to (Not that you can jog off the mountain in ice and snow to hurry) but we then endured a slightly terrifying drive home over a LOT of black ice! Jeff did an amazing job. We seriously turned out of the car park, up the first hill when the car proceeded to go sideways and backwards!!!
I would have given up then and there and funded a hotel room somehow, but Jeff carefully & skillfully traversed the narrow slippery roads out of Cradle. It was the slowest drive out we have ever done! Was quite the relief to hit the major roads!

So there you have it – fun, excitement beauty and terror all in one day!

Cheers!

(PS – I have now added another 230 images to my post processing issues!!) 😀