Oskar's First Ski Tour

Google Maps link to Smiggins Holes

It was a fantastic start to the snow season in Kosciuszko National Park, the best that I can remember. It had been snowing continuously for two weeks, and it showed. Thick dry snow in abundance. Salome was off on a ski lesson, so Oskar and I went to look at the cross country ski races near the Perisher Nordic Shelter, then head off on our skis to Smiggins Holes and meet up with Salome there once she finished her lesson.

The weather was close to white out when we started at 9am, but then it cleared enough to give a few kilometres visibility. It continued to snow on and off, which kept up for most of the day. We started off from the Perisher fire station, and tracked up to the hollow below the Nordic Shelter. The creek next to the fire station was completely covered over with snow, which I had never seen before in that place. There was one hole through the snow down to the flowing water of the creek, which showed the depth of the snow at that place to be at least sixty centimetres.

It only took us a few minutes to get to the spot where the race meeting was being held. Someone obviously had the barbeque at the Nordic Shelter going as the aroma of fried onions and sausages wafted through the air. Flags had been set up to denote the racing tracks for the races, and young people were lined up ready to start in the next race. Oskar and I watched one race start, young men who soon zoomed off into the mist amid yells of encouragement from the crowd. They soon re-appeared and flew down the hill and around a corner to disappear off into the mist again. It looked like quite exciting stuff. We were starting to cool down, so we decided to head off on our jaunt to Smiggins.

Oskar on tour

The trip between Perisher and Smiggins isn’t long, only a few kilometres, but for a six year old it is quite good for a first real tour, especially as the snow was thick and fresh and we would not be travelling quickly. There is also a bit of variation in terrain, as the first half is a gentle upward slope over open ground, and the second half is downhill amongst the trees. The other point in our favour is that there is a free shuttle bus between Smiggins and Perisher, so that we didn’t need to do the return trip on skis.

We started from the eastern side of the Perisher car park. There is normally a creek here and the snow is usually quite patchy. Not today. There was lovely thick fresh snow as far as the eye could see. We actually had to step up half a metre onto the snow from the car park. We headed in an easterly direction towards the pass that connects Perisher to Smiggins, with me breaking the trail out in front and Oskar following up behind. He started to baulk a bit when I pointed out how far we were going, but the trick I have found to motivate a little person is to set small objectives and achieve them one after the other. I pointed out to him the trees just before the pass, and said that we could stop there for a drink and to eat the chocolate cake that we had in our packs. The wind was coming from the south-west, so it was behind us all the way, which made it a bit more pleasant when it was snowing and also made the going a bit easier.

Perisher resort in the background

We reached the trees in about half an hour, with me having to stop regularly to let Oskar catch up. The skis he was on were not particularly fast, as I had converted some old Fischer downhill kids skis into cross country skis by using a Dremel to cut a pattern into the base, and changed the bindings for some light weight three pin ones. The extra drag the skis had actually came in quite handy as Oskar loves going down hill as fast as he can, so the extra drag the skis have provide a bit of a safety factor. We went around to the sheltered side of the trees, which are Snow Gums, Eucalyptus pauciflora. The nice thing about these trees is that apart from having very attractive bark and interesting shapes, they often have a piece of branch sticking out that is very convenient for hanging your pack on.

Once we were refreshed, we headed through the small pass, downhill towards Smiggins. Oskar tried various techniques for going downhill, which mainly involved going straight in one direction until he hit a thick, soft patch of snow. He was coming down one section that was actually on the road that occurs there, when he fell over and decided to rest for a minute. At that moment the trail grooming machine decided to come looming over the hill behind him. These trail grooming machines are enormous. They have four big tracks that are a couple of metres wide, and they drag a big rotating brush behind them. The idea is that they follow the commonly used trails, packing the snow down and grooming the top, thereby making it easier for the downhill skiers and boarders to run on. I could see that this monster of a machine was heading for Oskar and that he wasn’t aware of it. I was a good thirty metres away from him so there was not much I could do but yell at him and point him into the trees that were next to him. He finally looked at the machine heading in his direction (which showed no sign of stopping – I’m sure they hadn’t seen him) and in a flurry of skis and stocks he scrabbled his way into the trees. This scared him quite a bit and he was a bit upset, but when this sort of stuff happens I always reassure him and tell him that he did the right thing. I was also glad that I did not have to dig my son out of the snow after being squashed in there by the trail groomer (the snow was quite thick).

We kept on heading downhill, with Oskar getting a bit frustrated that the thick powdery snow was not letting him go as fast as he expected, and was putting him off balance. We finally got to the bottom of the hill, which delivers you right into the middle of the mayhem of the ski resort. Oskar was quite pleased with himself that he had “got somewhere”. We then spent a while climbing up the nicely groomed slopes and skiing downhill, with me trying to encourage Oskar to start snow-ploughing and working on his turns, to no avail. I was quite surprised when he tackled a substantial section of hill and ended up at the bottom still upright. The next time he went from a little higher up, and has he started to gain speed I could see he was headed straight for a person who was stationary on the slope. Oskar turned. He then headed down the hill and straight at another person. He turned again. So much for snow ploughing. I was quite pleased though that he was looking quite in control on his skis when he had a bit of speed up.

It always concerns me that on cross country skis Oskar is always a bit of a slow moving target for the skiers and boarders that are coming down the slopes, especially the ones that don’t quite have control. What I do then is to climb the hill with Oskar, always staying on the uphill side of him, so that if any errant downhiller looks like that are about to plough into us I can apply a blocking manoeuvre. Being bigger than most people I hope that my mass will make up for their acceleration (force equals mass times acceleration, right?). The other thing I tell Oskar to do is that if looks like he is about to be bowled over by someone he should duck down and hopefully they will go over the top. It used to work for me when I was little (many moons ago!).

Great spot for lunch

We mucked around and did some runs, then headed off up to the cross country trails on the eastern side of Smiggins. We snuck in behind some trees out of the wind, had a bit of lunch, then decided to go back to the shelter of the resort when the snow started to really come down. We had a snack at the canteen there and decided to hop the bus back to Perisher, bring the car back to Smiggins, and wait for Salome to come back from her ski lesson. While waiting we went into one of the gift shops at Smiggins, and Oskar was very chuffed to get a Perisher Blue Resort hat pin and stick it into his skiing beanie. Well on his way to becoming a snow rat.