Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Sam and Stu's Kiwi Travels
We decided to give Coronet Peak a try today as we had heard that Coronet Peak holds the snow better than the Remarkables (something to do with it being North facing), and as they had 30cm of snow on Friday we were hoping the snow conditions would be pretty good.
We got up at 7 and caught the early bus at 8:10. We weren't wrong - Coronet Peak was amazing!!! The best snow we've had so far this season. The whole mountain was covered in powder and there wasn't an icy patch in sight! We headed straight up the Coronet Express to the very top of the mountain. It was a beautiful day, nice and sunny and there was barely a cloud in the sky. I don't know if it was just because the conditions were perfect but I felt like I suddenly clicked, and that I was skiing better than ever. Stu felt the same on his board. It was the best days skiing we've had by far. We covered the whole mountain. We started with the main runs coming off the Coronet Express, then we headed over to Greengates Express and did all the runs on the left side of the mountain, then we headed to the T-Bar to do the runs off to the right of the mountain.
One of the runs to the right of the T-Bar was partially closed off for a race that was taking place this afternoon. There was a guy on the gate so we stopped to ask what was happening as we could see a few people skiing down the course. He told us about the race and said if we liked we could have a go down the race track, as long as we skied slowly and didn't treat it like an actual race....hell yeah!! Steep slope to get us going and then about 15 gates down to the bottom. I only missed one gate and was really quite chuffed with myself as we although we didn't hurtle down we weren't going at a snails pace either. Stu found it slightly more tricky on his board and ended up on his backside a couple of times but he still enjoyed giving it a go!
Unfortunately it turns out we weren't meant to be on the course. There was pretty irate lady on the bottom of the course asking everyone how they had gotten on the course. She had a bit of a moan when we got to the bottom, told us we could race this afternoon if we paid $25, but no-one was meant to be on the course this morning, and then stormed up the hill, presumably to have a go at the man at the top who was letting everyone through!!! Ah, well....I was still really happy that we got to have a go! Must've just been there at the right time as the next time we came down the whole course was completely fenced off and empty.
We went in for some lunch about 1, and then headed back up the the Coronet Express. I was feeling really confident and wanted to have a go at a black run (There are three types of ski runs, Green are the easiest for beginner skiers, blue are intermediate, and black are advanced). I hadn't done a black run since I went to Canada and I decided today was the day to give it a go as there was plenty of powder to catch me!! We did a couple of warm up runs after lunch and then it was time for my black run, 'The Hurdle' it was called. I was a bit nervous looking down from the top but I didn't want to give myself time to hesitate so I just went.......and I did it!!!! Not nearly as bad as I was expecting, a couple of the turns were a bit tricky but all in all I was pleasantly surprised! We headed straight up the mountain to do it again so that I knew it wasn't a fluke! I really could do it, once again we made it down without any problems. Yey - I really can ski!!!
We found another couple of blue runs that forked off of the bottom of the black run but we decided to give them a go another day as we only had about 45 mins until the last shuttle bus left for town an we weren't sure where abouts they would lead. We headed down the M1, the main run back to the base station, and then back up the Coronet Express for the last two runs of the day. The ski lifts close at 4 so we grabbed our stuff, changed our boots and headed out to the car park to catch the last bus home at 4:30.
Once we got home Stu popped into town to check his e-mails in case he had heard any more about his job, while I cooked us Spagetti Bolognaise for dinner. We had some dinner and settled in for a nice quiet evening after a brilliant day on the slopes!!! :0)
- comments