We headed to Perisher over the weekend with Charles and the boys from ASM and it was a nice change not to have to drive. The drive down was a 3 car convoy met with sights of fire fighters doing back-burning along the freeway; a nasty splattering of kangaroo road kill; and a cute fat wombat crossing the road slowly in front of us. Charles had to do some quick thinking and quickly swerved to avoid colliding into the fatty. Luckily Charles was driving, because I don’t think any of us would have known what to do. Phew.

Day 1 – wet wet wet
We jam packed Anna’s new Mercedes a190 with a total of 5 people and 5 snowboards (with bindings) and we were off.

The weather forecast for the day was rain, but we were hoping it would hold off. As we were lining up to get our first chair lift for the day, we were second from the front when they closed the lifts due to an electrical storm in the area and didn’t open it for sometime. The rest of the day followed the same suit, everywhere we went ended with a closed chair lift or closed T-bar, leaving us absolutely drenched to the core, alone and stranded at Pretty Valley.

We had to walk all the way back to Front Valley in the freezing rain / snow / hail / electrical storm. I swear lightning struck meters away from where we were walking. By the time we got back to Front Valley half of our crew had enough of being cold and wet so they headed home.

G and I, unsatisfied with the day, decided to stay and cross our fingers for good weather. We spent about 1/2 an hour in the bathrooms using the hand dryers to dry our clothes and stay warm, then headed back to Perisher Front Valley at 4pm.

A change in luck
When we arrived at Front Valley we saw the most amazing sight ever – the chair lifts were back open – AND the rain had stopped. Also, because there was such a long and heavy downpour, most people (including half of our own crew) had left for the day, so we pretty much had the whole mountain to ourselves.

Because it was such crappy weather all day with most (if not all) the chair lifts closed, Perisher let everyone to do night-skiing for free if you had a pass for the day.

Snowboarding under the night’s sky was very cool indeed. It’s even more fun after a shot of Agwa and Mother, and a Jim Beam and coke (Yes, I like Jim Beam so sue me).

Day 2 – Ice Ice Baby
Because of all the rain on Saturday, Sunday was very icy and extra cold. I’ll let the picture tell you how cold it was.

We saw quite a few injured people along the way, include one of our crew. Nevertheless there was no rain, so we ventured on and got a pretty good day’s worth of practice (and injuries to match). A must-do trail at Perisher is Pretty Valley, not only is it a nice long run but when you reach the bottom you can order yourself one of these awesome hot chocolates. Yum!