Every year we visit Mt Feathertop in September to enjoy the spring skiing on the best looking mountain in Victoria and it looks its best when covered in snow. The initial plans were for at least six of us to be on the trip, come the day it was just me and Bob Daley. We picked up XCD skis and plastic boots from Ray’s in Myrtleford, drove to Harrietville and walked up the Bungalow spur on Friday night on the first weekend in September. We had planned to pick up water 3 or so kilometres up the track where you cross the spur. But there was no water. I had never seen that creek run dry. That ruled out stopping half way up the spur as we have done in the past.

Luckily the spring two thirds of the way up was running and we had just enough water to last until then; the next creek just after the spring was also running dry (another first). We got up to the old hut ruins at about 11.00pm and set up tents on the grass amongst the snow gums. Bob had bought a bit of new gear for this trip, including a brand new thermarest. It unrolled as flat as a piece of cardboard, and instructions dropped out recommending it is left to self inflate for at least one day, so that it will expand to it full thickness before use. Good thing we weren’t on the snow or Bob would have had a very cold night. A few spare bits of foam and all his spare clothes made for a bearable night’s sleep.

The next day was a cracker, one out of the box. A sunny blue still day with just a few clouds in the sky. We walked up to Federation Hut, set up our tent near by in the snow and walked up to the summit of Mt Feathertop for lunch. The Alps had a snow cover more typical of mid October not early September.

We were enjoying the view and the peace and quiet, only to have the silence broken by the Helicopter doing the Hotham—Falls Creek route, which detoured towards us. An hour or so later the chopper came back, this time with in a snow ball’s throw of the summit, with a camera man, taking shots through the open rear door. There were some gun skiers screeding up Hell Fire Gully that also caught the Camera man’s eye. The skiers certainly weren’t us. After the chopper went, I followed after Bob to try and ski down Hell Fire. The snow was still a bit too crusty for my capabilities and after a few survival turns, I chose to walk back out following up the steps kicked in by Bob. We headed for the western slopes of Feathertop that had been in the sun longer and were a little less steep. The Fischer Boundless skis and plastic boots were a first for me. I thought the stiffer boots would make the telemarking much easier, but they feel very different to the softer leather boots I usually wear. The lack of feeling of what the ski was doing, took me some time to master. The skis though were a lot easier to carve than my 15 year old Blizzard Telemarks, which are 2/3 the width. Tele skis have got a lot shorter and fatter in the last five years

On the way down we ran into Eric Krista, an old WOA member who was up from Melbourne with the Victorian Mountaineering Club, leading a training weekend on ice climbing. They had an eventful weekend with one of their team was choppered out with severe leg cramp.

The next day there was wind and cloud and the snow was not softening, so we had a late breakfast and headed up to the cairn on the Razorback spur and tried some easier runs on the east side in the morning sun; the snow was still a little hard for effortless turning.

We lunched back at the tents and skied the slope south of Federation Hut, which is a nice steady grade with the odd snow gum to dodge on the way down. Finally I started to get the hang of the skis and stiff boots on the gentler slopes that had softened by the afternoon sun.

The 20 odd people that were camping around Federation Hut had all left by lunchtime. I guess most had to drive back to Melbourne. It was 4.00pm by the time we starting heading down. We got back to the car just after dark, tired but recharged from a great weekend back in the mountains.