Mount Stirling
Camping close to the Bluff Spur hut (click image for more)
This weekend was a SNOW weekend. And also my birthday-trip weekend (my birthday is on Monday).
We snowshoed overnight packs and snow toys 5km (and 0.5km of elevation) up Mount Stirling on Saturday afternoon. My pack was almost intolerably heavy… but It was gorgeously white and fluffy everywhere we looked :) We set up camp close to Bluff Spur Hut, which had a deliciously warm pot-bellied stove burning ferociously inside. I got a surprise when I opened my pack and found that my regular, tiny, summer sleeping pad had been replaced with my birthday present; a beefy four season pad! And so, after a cosy (well as cosy as a tent at -3C can be) night, we walked up to the summit to play on the slopes. Unfortunately, the cloud was fairly low and we didn’t take many pics up there, but the snow was deep and dry (if heavy) and we wore ourselves out having fun. We came back to the hut for lunch, packed up the tent and then, somewhat incredulously, I rode my board the whole 5km down the winding, narrow tracks with my weekend pack on! My thigh muscles were rock hard and my ankles were burning by the time we were back at the car. But it was worth it :)
