On Friday night I just chilled around. Went over to Sarah's for a little while and watched a movie with Simon, Sarah, and Gaz. Then Ben, Mel, and I decided not to go to the mountain on Saturday because it was going to be too cold and therefore icy...
In the morning I got a text from Ben. Luckily I woke up when I heard it and I headed off to meet them in Cambridge. We were going to the mountain in hopes of a good day. Well, we got a good day. It was really warm and sunny up there. Ben and I took a run with Mel, then took the National out. We went straight to the top of the Far West T-bar and started hiking. Before long it started getting REALLY icy and we were struggling to make any forward progress.
About 2 hours later we completed the tramp up to the crater which should have only been about an hour. We hung out at the crater for a little while and took some pictures (will be posted tomorrow). On the way up there was a guy who told us the next valley to the north of the one we were on would have better snow. We walked around one of the peaks and then we were screwed. It was all ice and steep. I slipped twice and almost ended up sliding down to Tukino on the other side of the mountain. My knees were sore from slipping and falling on the ice. It was miserable. I felt like crying.
Eventually we made it up and we had to cross a massive ice field. We went across that and came across some other guys we had seen earlier. We had to go down a huge ice cliff. Ben and I were both crapping our pants about this point. It turned out that the cliff wasn't bad at all, but it looked scary from the top. Once we got down from there we learned that one of the guys there had dropped his board and he was on foot. He was in pretty great danger. It was icy and getting late in the day. We said we would go down and send help up for them.
The run down was incredible. About 4-6 inches of loose smooth slush. It was almost powder-like. We cruised that hard. At the top of the Valley T-bar we found the guy's board. We took it down to ski patrol and they sent a few guys up on snowmobiles to find the guys. In the bus on the way from the Whakapapa Village to the carpark we heard on the radio that the guys had been found and were being brought down.
All in all it was amazing. We had awesome views from the top and in the crater. Had an excellent run down. My knees hurt today, but I'll live.
Daylight savings time started today. Wheee... light later at night.
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