At 13:30 on Friday afternoon, El Flangers picked me up from my apartment in Randwick and we set off for my first ever adventure in the snow. We ate dinner at Angie's Italian in Jindabyne, and just after 21:30pm we pulled up at our accommodation, which until that point had been kept secret from me! We stayed at Rodney the Rocket Fox's Rivergum Lodge, in our own private log cabin with a wood fire and everything!
The mission was to unpack and quickly get to bed, as we needed to be up shortly after 6am. On Saturday, we breakfasted at 7am then headed into to town where we met our guide, Nick, at the Wilderness Sports store and collected our snow shoes and other necessities. Finally, we set out for Thredbo village. It was such a sloooooooow journey because every man and his dog wanted to get to the snow! The weather was beautiful and there had been recent good falls. We, however, were not heading to the fields in order to ski or snowboard. We were headed on a trek from Thredbo to the summit of Mount Kosciuszko on a journey entitled "The Roof of Australia".
As we approached the Kosciuszko Express chairlift, I went into sensory overload, surrounded by glistening white for the very first time and about to embark on my first chairlift experience! It was with much awkward nervousness that I sat between my mals counterparts, but once we were headed up the mountain I quickly began to enjoy absorbing all this new input, the sights and sounds of a busy snowfield. By the time we reached the top, the situation had drastically changed and we faced very different conditions on the mountain. Once we had attached our snow shoes, we started making our way into a very strong headwind, but for the first half hour, we still had clear sky.
It was magic. In the sunlight, I marveled at the way the snow glistened like diamonds. I noticed the different textures of snow; soft, hard, icy, bumpy, flat - all of it incredible to me! As we approached Rams Head, the strong headwind became fierce and the weather closed in. The blue sky was ancient history and we experienced frequent white outs. It was very tough going and as the feeling came and went from my fingers they burned and ached. It was also extremely challenging mentally and just 30 minutes away from the summit, conditions became so bad our guide made the executive decision that we should turn back... But we didn't. We agreed to go another 50m and if it didn't improve then we would abort... Improve it did - albeit very slightly! 30 minutes later and I was ELATED to find myself at the summit of our highest mountain for the second time this year - but under strikingly different conditions to my first encounter with this mountain. That magical place where I feel so centered and alive. Where all things are clear to me and I am able to release myself of all fear and anxiety.
After a quick photo stop, we headed towards Rawsons Pass and homeward bound. Less than 2 hours later, we were back at the chair lift and on our way down to Thredbo village. Of course, once we reached the bottom, the weather was just as perfect as when we had embarked on our journey, if a little windier than before. We essentially trekked the red trail on this map:
Overjoyed but thoroughly spent, we stopped in at the Wild Brumby Schnapps Distillery for a tasting on our way back to Jindabyne. We spent the evening chatting with Rodney back at the Rivergum - as it turns out, he's a city2surf legend and we had much running to discuss :)
Today we made our way back to Sydney at a very leisurely pace and along some very scenic roads.. Secure in the knowledge that our gear for Everest has been successfully tested and that we are made of the right stuff to tough it out! Adam was fantastic company and I am so so grateful to him for taking me on this adventure and organizing it all :) I just had to pack and tag along!
