Snow Trip 2007

[cj!]

Just a reminder for those driving Mt Skene Saturday morning that we will be aiming for an 8am start outside the Pub in Jamieson. Also if anyone has some spare space, a bag of wood would be greatly appreciated by those hardy souls camping in the snow.

[sporterwagen]

For those at home missing the snow trip like me, I just received an update from Steve.

Friday was terrific, great snow driving etc, but terrible weather came through today. Loads of rain, wind and the snow was starting to melt. Coupled with all the cars on the mountain, it made for pretty miserable driving. Hopefully Pat got a few photos in. Those planning to camp on the mountain, decided to head back into town and try their luck for a hotel room, shame about the snow but I'm sure they are all having a great time in one of the local pubs about now.

Thats the snow trip for you, like a box of chocolates

Seonaid

[muppet_man67]

so is anyone planning on going back up the mountain on sunday? I doubt anyone would be bothered. shame about the whether.

[andrew_wale]

Bummer about the weather.
Hopefully everyone is having fun.

Andrew Wale

[muppet_man67]

so show us some pics?

[Matthew]

I had a blast on the Friday, although I did become a bit stressed near the end of the day, I think it was fairly obvious though, as I ended up getting Steve to drive my car to the edge of the snow line.
I'll give a quick summary of what happened.

Steve, Michael, Rob and myself set off about 9:30, about 30km up the road the Hedgepig split a coolant hose on the throttle body, took about half an hour to fix.

Early in the day it was great, the snow was good and I had no trouble driving it. Stick to the track and there was hardly any sign of getting stuck, move to the deeper snow on the edges and it was harder to drive but not bad, Rob and myself mainly stuck to the centre of the track while Michael and Steve took turns at driving deeper snow and getting stuck but it was all fun.

After lunch and setting up camp things changed, I don't really know how to explain it, but it became harder to drive and getting stuck was easy, well it was for me. The point when I started to become stressed was when Michael, Steve and Rob were stuck, leaving me the only free vehicle. I recovered Steve, who recovered Michael, but then Michaels car split a hose (similar spot to the hedgepig). After repairing that Rob was recovered. On our way again and it wasn't long before I became stuck again. This time I was stuck good, and while trying to recover me Michael backed his car into a huge rut. I removed some of the snow from my tyres and diff and was recovered by Steve after a couple attempts with the Vitara. Recovering Michael took a while, with each attempt his car would move about 6 inches, and he then temporarily lost low range due to the amount of snow pushing against his transfer case, Steve dug some of the snow out and with 2 or 3 more snatch attempts he was free. At this point it was after 5 and the sun was just about to set, I was stressed and cold and worried I wouldn't get back in time to get a hot dinner, so I asked Steve to drive my car to the snow line, 15 or so mins later and I was driving back down the dirt road.

Steve thanks again for getting me back in time.

[cj!]

The weather and the snow condition wasn't quite what we were hoping for but it was good fun all the same. The biggest problem was waiting on the other traffic to get out of our way so we could get down. It was great to meet Pat and he is keen to look at a snow trip again in the future but it may be a short notice midweek type of trip to make sure that the snow and the weather are right and not to get caught up in the traffic. Just have to hope we good a good dump again next year. Although we had a big and varied group of vehicles with us we moved along quite well which certainly helped. After coming off the snow, some went and had a play on Mitchell's track so Pat could get some more shots. Both he and Bill developed a taste for raspberry beer from the Brewery we were staying at which was a bit of a worry but I think everyone enjoyed themselves last night. The other concern was seeing Ross driving Daryl's Sierra with a Daihatsu badge stuck on the front. I think somebody will be paying for that.

[Phantomzook]

The finable offence.

[mightymouse]

The finable offence.

Personally I think I should get some form of medal......

Had a great time - thanks Bill and Steve - Daryl's SierraHatsu was worth the effort methinks
even if Sierra's arn't exactly a "drivers car". Until we tightened the steering preload it
"drove like a drunken horse" - but its sobered up now.

Thanks go to Daryl for the loan - extremely generous - all I need to do now is get my hearing
back and some feeling in my rear end.

And I definately now remember why I bought a Feroza.........

[billbarbas]

Had a ball was a great trip, Pat was rapt, was impressed with the variety and the way we conducted ourselves. Was bloody cold and windy, how on earth you would camp up there is beyond me!
Proud to say the simexes were awesome in the snow, and the new motor pulling 110km on the freeway back home was a sight I thought would never happen.
My sierra is awesome on the freeway, the gearing is perfect. A high country tourer?????