Ramshead Ramblings - 6-8 July 2015

There are some places in Australia that are as magical in winter as they are in summer.
Ramshead Range is one of these places.
Many people trave along the range in summer to reach Australia's highest peak- Mt Kosciuszko ( 2,228 m), but not many do in winter.

Snowflakes attached to the shrubbery peeping through the minuscule layer of snow

Last year, I camped along this range and in some places we measured at least 5 meters of snow. This year however, due to the atrocious season, we barley measured 5 cm.
Despite the horrible snow cover, myself, Nick Hall and Sarah Collum guided a group of 3 novice venturer scouts with Marcel Muller and Ian Hewitt supporting our trip.

To get to the range there are 2 options:
1. Walk up from Dead Horse Gap- A really nice walk going down, but hard going walking up with a heavy pack.
or
2. Catch the Kosciuszko Express Chairlift from Thredbo to the top of Eagles Nest.
Option 2 was our choice not just because we had teenagers who hated walking up hill, but it cut a significant amount of time off our trip meaning that we would have more time and importantly energy to set up camp.

We set off from Thredbo around 10:00 am and arrived up at eagles nest for the obligatory coffee, hot chocolate and raisin toast.  After the last coffees and final briefings we set out along the Kosciuszko Walking track (which was still clearly visible due to the lack of snow). About 4 km along the track, we verged off to the base of the steep slopes were we found a rock overhang with enough snow around it to build a tent platforms and build walls around the overhang to create our very own deluxe snow cave with built in shelves, water supply and candle holders. exploration of the site revealed that 15 m above our camp areas was an incredible ice face, despite being only 8-9 meters tall, which was perfect for a bit of ice climbing.
After lunch we built a wall out of snow blocks to block off part of our cave from the elements and put 2 tarps over the top.
If you've ever slept in a snow cave you will know how important it is to level out the floor to ensure not only a goods night sleep but any sleep at all!

After eating dinner we went to bed at 7 pm (I know, a group of teenagers going to bed at 7 is strange). We neglected to level our floor during the day so as we lay down we quickly discovered that we would slide down to one end of the cave into the smallest part of the rock overhang. It proved to be a rather uncomfortable and sleepless night.

Nick and myself with our participants enjoying our snow cave

We woke up the next morning and spent around an hour slowly rolling out of bed, packing up our gear and melting down snow for hot drinks and breakfast.
After breakfast we started building our quinzhee.

A quinzhee looks similar to an igloo, but is made in a completely different method. Igloos are made from snow blocks, stacked to form a dome. Whereas a quinzhee is made from a pile of snow which you hollow out to form a cave.

The team building the quinzhee

 After we built the quinzhee we noticed that the slope above the quinzhee would make an awesome slide. So we got digging and carved out a track with crash barriers and all! We spent a good part of the afternoon sliding down trying out every method we could think of including sliding on down the snow shovels.

For the rest of the afternoon we made a coffee run to Thredbo and levelled out the cave. As the sun set we carved objects like hearts out of the snow .

We settled in for the night again and had a far more enjoyable sleep.
We woke up in the morning to view the incredible sunrise whilst drinking coffee.

The sunrise

Early morning sun over the Hilleberg tent

After breakfast and the pack up we spent the morning ice climbing. For a majority of us, this was our first time ice climbing and the climb certainly did not disappoint.

Slamming the crampons into the ice

After a full morning of climbing we had lunch ad slowly headed back to Thredbo to catch the chairlift down.

Another adventure over but once again our 3 day ramble along Ramshead truly captivated me and all who came.