Camping In the snow at Kosi

View from Seamans Hut towards Mt Townsend (back middle)

 The Black Diamond Megalight weighs 1kg, can uses trekking poles as center pole, works better in snow than on land - as snow can be use to cut drafts, flapping. And a pit can dug underneath. still standing after 100km / hr gusts. 

Around the 5 october, having finished the season working at River Inn, I decided to take the big step and do more than day trips to the high country. After much packing and humming and haa-ing, and having re-stitched my silk liner for my sleeping bag (was ripping), I finally took the chair lift up to Eagles nest with my huge pack, day trip pack on top. I then walked a bit , put on my skis after the top photo and skiied to a position 1km south of Seamans hut. I used the Gps to mark positions to go to in case of fog/gales. Including seamans hut itself. 

Was lucky with the weather, with some strong wind gusts towards the end. Also it warmed up (4degrees in the morning - balmy) which turned out to be a problem for staking the tent, melting snow walls etc. I ended up using buried bags of snow on almost all my points. 1st night was coldish at -1 . Found I needed 2 mats as you loose a lot of heat thru the floor. Slept with down jacket on. 

To avoid flapping and bowing of the fly, I found the best solution was to make internal snow pyramids as shown above. reduced flapping to zero.  Got quite comfortable, listening to Vivaldi via my mp3 palyer and a small speaker while I made dinner. Probably bring a backrest seat of some kind next time, as one spends quite a bit of time cooking from the sleeping bag. 

Friday did a big day trip, over etheridge ridge, past Kosi, down to Mueller pass and up Mt Townsend via steep south side . down North side.... 20 min of continuous skiing downhill with no wind and the glowing snow dome of Mt Townsend behind me... le reve.   Then back to camp via snowy river and Seamans hut

Found I was improving on my parallel skiing - the best way is ski down in a controlled fall... pointing body down the hill at all times and not overturning. The skis are freeheel, but you just ignore that and ski as normal.  Much cheaper than resort skiing, more adventurous, gets you fitter, better views.