Truly The Heights Of Winter

Well well well, this was a weekend and no mistake.

Started early on Saturday morning with the Heights Of Winter rogaine. Basically a run around the hills looking for orienteering checkpoints. Maaike and I had decided to attempt this one on our own. Our team name was ‘Are you sure?‘. I imagine this filled the organisers with dread!

The weather was pretty nasty (but not too). It rained most of the time, but the cloud level wasn’t low enough to make the navigation any harder than it needed to be.

I’ll try and put the map up later on so you can see our route. It was hilarious looking at people getting ready for the event. Ok, so I’m being a little mean as it’s not a sport I’m particularly good at, hence not too competitive. But.. when the coloured drawing pins and string come out so that you can plan the shortest / easiest route to maximum points, well… hmmm… actually that does sound like a good idea.

Next year I’ll be off to the stationers before the event.

After that Maaike and I headed over to Emma’s to get the car to drive up to Cheeseman for Neil’s birthday party.

Now, a lot of ski roads require the use of chains for two wheel drive cars to get up the access roads. They usually have a sign at the entrance telling you where you need to put them on.

So, we got to cheeseman, found out we had 6k to drive before we had to put them on, and off we went.

Hit the first hill… and … came to a wheel spinning stop. Out we got wondering what to do. Reversing down a hill on icy snow is hard. Putting on chains seemed to be an easier option. So, we got out the chains and started to put them on.

The car however had a different idea. Relieved of its human burden Charlie (the car) decided to make a break for it and slid/rolled down the hill. I ran after it, opened the passenger door and tried to put on the already put on handbreak. As soon as I saw it was on, I leapt out of the car. Maaike, for once incorrectly figuring that I was a wuss, then tried to get into the car, and also leapt free. About 2 secs later the car came to an abrupt halt when the back wheels bit into something they could get friction on.

It was bloody scary. In retrospect. If we had been in the car fiddling with the handbrake, and if it had gone over the edge… then it could have been nasty.

Things we learned.. If you happen to be caught out putting your chains on late and are stuck on a hill..

• Leave the car in gear – this prevents the front wheels rotating
• Turn the wheels so that *if* the car falls down the hill – that it will fall into the side (rather than down a cliff)
• Put rocks / something behind the wheels to stop them sliding (if you can)

The rest of the trip was reasonably uneventful, we saw this car on the way down the next day.. and had a 2 hour wait to get back over Porters Pass as there was lots of snow falling (and stupid stupid tourists stopping their stupid van while driving up the hill… momentum, to some extent, is your friend while driving on snow).

Fun and games. Fun and games. Work will seem like the holiday this week.