Andre, Dan and Tom were keen for 3 hours in the hills, Gaz and I were keener for 6, so we rode as a bunch to the top of the range at a decent pace then parted ways, with the boys bombing down Two Sticks, while Gaz and I opted to add on 25km of climbing to get up to Franklin and Ginini, where it was likely there would be snow.
It wasn't long before we spotted some either, in the distance you could see Mt Franklin was covered with a white cap of lush snow, so we had to climb it! I'd never been up there before and was surprised by how short the climb was, it's not far off the main road to Ginini and well worth the trip, offering stunning views in all directions, and today, tonnes of white stuff to try and ride on. It was a challenging climb that would have been a doddle in the dry, but good fun as snow isn't something you get to ride everyday.
The trees were omnimously glowing with snow and ice that had blown onto branches sideways, they looked pretty bizarre. Not many of them with any leaves, it's real alpine vegetation up here with snow gums and hardy shrubs burried in snow.
After many a photo, a few serves of home made banana bread, and some soaking up of the views, we rolled back down the trail to the main road and headed for Ginini, where deeper snow awaited.
Not a breath of wind around and a sunny day, it was surprisingly warm up there, which was lucky as it can be nasty in the mountains this time of year, so we were able to ride all the way to the radar station at the summit, which wasn't easy, I had to push a few 50m sections where it was too soft to ride, but bombing back down was much easier, the faster you went the higher you sat on the top of the snow and the easier it was. So we let the brakes off and flew down the mountain on a bed of pure white, with nothing to be heard but the crunching of snow under tyre and the breathing of pure mountain air.
On a high, we pinned it for Two Sticks and enjoyed over 60km of downhill back to the cars, over snow and firetrail it was a fast trip, spoilt only by some surface mud that sprayed our bikes and faces pretty good, but I was thankful it wasn't the foul sticky hike-a-bike-mud I have had up here before :)
This is definitely a ride every one should do at least once, it's not every day you get to ride from home into lush snow!
The crew:
| Gaz | Giant XTC 29er |
| Jase | Giant Anthem |
The Stats:
| Distance | 113km |
| Time | 6:20 |
| Climb | 2.2vkm |
| Date | 22/08/10 |