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We all headed off to Jamieson on Friday night last week, and settled in for
the night with the aim for an early 8:30AM start because we knew that another big 4x4 group was also there for the weekend, and we wanted to be the first to get to the top of Mt Skene.The amount of snow we found was definitely more than the years gone by. Normally we drive to an "air down" point to let the tyres down but because the snow line was as low as 850 meters, there were thoughts of even pulling over on the side of the road to air down but we got to our normal spot.
Driving up to the top of Skene this year even though there was lots of snow was one of the easiest years I have experienced. Out of interest the concensus of the group after quite a few years of doing this is
for snow driving, the better tyres are the more aggressive ones, as the highway tyres struggle to get themselves up on to the snow surface. You just have to be more careful if they start to dig in than less aggressive tyres
To our surprise, despite the big blanket of snow, we got to the top with no one getting stuck en-route. In fact we got there so early that it was only around 10:30AM. This proved to be really good for the kids, who had a great time throwing snow balls, making snow men, and even building an igloo!
It alternated between brief moments of sunshine to sleet to snow and the wind picked up and died down at various stages. The kids also enjoyed tobogganing down the slope.
Much later a whole bunch of other 4x4s (mostly GQ/GU Patrols and Cruisers) showed up, with monster sized Simexes. They adopted the "full open throttle" technique of snow driving, and it was interesting to see that this could work with relatively light short wheel base GQ Patrols. There's definitely better "flotation" with oversized tyres and less body weight.
By the time we drove down the mountain, because so many groups of vehicles had gone past, it was like a paved highway. No trouble at all, no traffic jams.
We took Snake Edwards track and the river crossing was quite fast flowing and up to mid - door height, so it was reasonably deep. Also it was flowing very very fast which made it quite interesting. We were a bit apprehensive about the Jeep and the Pajero as they both did not have
any snorkels, but fortunately a slower pace and water bra prevented any
hydraulic incidents. As you went across we pointed upstream well above the exit point and then the current hit us and pushed us down and in line with the exit. The Jeep sat there spinning for about 30 sec just inching forward and we were getting a little worried, but it got through…just.
It was a great day out with little hard 4x4ing and no damage except perhaps for some wet carpets for a few vehicles, but thankfully mine stayed quite dry..
The next day was a different story altogether
We had decided on a route over Mt. Terrible to Big River, Cambarville which we had taken in 2004, but it did not really go to plan.
Sunday morning, 9.00 am the crew assembled outside of the Courthouse Hotel and headed off for Polletti track . At 500 metres we encountered patchy snow and by 700m a couple of inches blanketed the ground. The scenery was stunning with all the trees covered in white. At about 1100 metres we came to our first steep descent and the track became hard to define as we were the first group up for the day.
All was fine and we reached the top of Mt. Terrible without incident although it was getting slippery. After a short stop and some snow fun for the kids we headed on down the mountain. We managed a half a kilometer and came to a stop. The Pajero was ahead and decided that it would rather be sideways. The driver straightened it up and went about another 20m before it really decided it would rather be very sideways and was about to slip off the side of the mountain as his all terrain rubber provided no grip on the icy southern side of the mountain. I put my foot on the brakes and slid about 20m and went rapidly into reverse to give it a boot when thankfully it dug in and stopped. The person behind me on jungle trackers and twin lockers came to a stop behind me and tried to reverse back up the hill, but probably only got a couple of metres back up before sliding sideways. The decision was made to try and recover the Pajero by my winch which promptly decided that it did not want to work. Investigation revealed that the main earth cable eyelet had broken but fortunately, we had enough left to fix it to the winch.
Luckily we still had one person at the top with a winch (which also had an earth problem and worked intermittently) So while he winched up the person behind me after attaching himself to a tree behind by extension strap and chain, I winched the Pajero straight and then back up to near me
We then decided to dig a wheel track for me through the ice under the snow to try and reverse up and that worked really well and I got back up to the top without any other problem.
We then tried to do the same for the Pajero but the only bit of ice we could not get to was under his tyres and he would not move even 5mm up the hill off that so it was back to the winching
This involved lots of recovery gear. One winch extension strap and chain to hold me to a tree then the winch rope and 2 winch extension straps and another winch extension strap and pulley of to one side to get the angle right. And then it was a long winch up the hill.
When he got close to me rather than reposition everything, it was decided to snatch him up the last 20m with a rangie with centipedes on and twin lockers etc and this worked but in the process he broke a stub axle
So then it was changing the stub axle time as it was good he came prepared with a spare, and everything else he might need including an air ratchet ! so he limped back to the hut on the top to do this
Now the snow was really falling and weather conditions had deteriorated quite badly.
Back down the mountain to Jamieson and then onwards
back to Melbourne after airing up.
I'd definitely recommend you all to make an overnight trip to Mt Skene to drive your vehicles around in the snow if you haven't done so before. Is a great lot of fun
the night with the aim for an early 8:30AM start because we knew that another big 4x4 group was also there for the weekend, and we wanted to be the first to get to the top of Mt Skene.The amount of snow we found was definitely more than the years gone by. Normally we drive to an "air down" point to let the tyres down but because the snow line was as low as 850 meters, there were thoughts of even pulling over on the side of the road to air down but we got to our normal spot.
Driving up to the top of Skene this year even though there was lots of snow was one of the easiest years I have experienced. Out of interest the concensus of the group after quite a few years of doing this is
for snow driving, the better tyres are the more aggressive ones, as the highway tyres struggle to get themselves up on to the snow surface. You just have to be more careful if they start to dig in than less aggressive tyres
To our surprise, despite the big blanket of snow, we got to the top with no one getting stuck en-route. In fact we got there so early that it was only around 10:30AM. This proved to be really good for the kids, who had a great time throwing snow balls, making snow men, and even building an igloo!
It alternated between brief moments of sunshine to sleet to snow and the wind picked up and died down at various stages. The kids also enjoyed tobogganing down the slope.
Much later a whole bunch of other 4x4s (mostly GQ/GU Patrols and Cruisers) showed up, with monster sized Simexes. They adopted the "full open throttle" technique of snow driving, and it was interesting to see that this could work with relatively light short wheel base GQ Patrols. There's definitely better "flotation" with oversized tyres and less body weight.
By the time we drove down the mountain, because so many groups of vehicles had gone past, it was like a paved highway. No trouble at all, no traffic jams.
We took Snake Edwards track and the river crossing was quite fast flowing and up to mid - door height, so it was reasonably deep. Also it was flowing very very fast which made it quite interesting. We were a bit apprehensive about the Jeep and the Pajero as they both did not have
any snorkels, but fortunately a slower pace and water bra prevented any
hydraulic incidents. As you went across we pointed upstream well above the exit point and then the current hit us and pushed us down and in line with the exit. The Jeep sat there spinning for about 30 sec just inching forward and we were getting a little worried, but it got through…just.
It was a great day out with little hard 4x4ing and no damage except perhaps for some wet carpets for a few vehicles, but thankfully mine stayed quite dry..
The next day was a different story altogether
We had decided on a route over Mt. Terrible to Big River, Cambarville which we had taken in 2004, but it did not really go to plan.
Sunday morning, 9.00 am the crew assembled outside of the Courthouse Hotel and headed off for Polletti track . At 500 metres we encountered patchy snow and by 700m a couple of inches blanketed the ground. The scenery was stunning with all the trees covered in white. At about 1100 metres we came to our first steep descent and the track became hard to define as we were the first group up for the day.
All was fine and we reached the top of Mt. Terrible without incident although it was getting slippery. After a short stop and some snow fun for the kids we headed on down the mountain. We managed a half a kilometer and came to a stop. The Pajero was ahead and decided that it would rather be sideways. The driver straightened it up and went about another 20m before it really decided it would rather be very sideways and was about to slip off the side of the mountain as his all terrain rubber provided no grip on the icy southern side of the mountain. I put my foot on the brakes and slid about 20m and went rapidly into reverse to give it a boot when thankfully it dug in and stopped. The person behind me on jungle trackers and twin lockers came to a stop behind me and tried to reverse back up the hill, but probably only got a couple of metres back up before sliding sideways. The decision was made to try and recover the Pajero by my winch which promptly decided that it did not want to work. Investigation revealed that the main earth cable eyelet had broken but fortunately, we had enough left to fix it to the winch.
Luckily we still had one person at the top with a winch (which also had an earth problem and worked intermittently) So while he winched up the person behind me after attaching himself to a tree behind by extension strap and chain, I winched the Pajero straight and then back up to near me
We then decided to dig a wheel track for me through the ice under the snow to try and reverse up and that worked really well and I got back up to the top without any other problem.
We then tried to do the same for the Pajero but the only bit of ice we could not get to was under his tyres and he would not move even 5mm up the hill off that so it was back to the winching
This involved lots of recovery gear. One winch extension strap and chain to hold me to a tree then the winch rope and 2 winch extension straps and another winch extension strap and pulley of to one side to get the angle right. And then it was a long winch up the hill.
When he got close to me rather than reposition everything, it was decided to snatch him up the last 20m with a rangie with centipedes on and twin lockers etc and this worked but in the process he broke a stub axle
So then it was changing the stub axle time as it was good he came prepared with a spare, and everything else he might need including an air ratchet ! so he limped back to the hut on the top to do this
Now the snow was really falling and weather conditions had deteriorated quite badly.
Back down the mountain to Jamieson and then onwards
back to Melbourne after airing up.
I'd definitely recommend you all to make an overnight trip to Mt Skene to drive your vehicles around in the snow if you haven't done so before. Is a great lot of fun
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