The Apathetic Eight have an adventure!

The snow trip was a fucking nightmare. A very pretty fucking nightmare. Snow white and the fucking nightmare.


The main problem was that someone needed to explain to the trip leader that an intermediate-to-advanced trip does not automatically become a beginners' trip just because you say to beginners, "Yeah, it's for all levels! You'll be fine! If you can't ski it, you can just walk for a bit."

Walking 18 km (11 miles) uphill on a solid sheet of ice (yeah, the weather was a little bit to blame as well) while carrying skis and poles is no fucking fun at all.

Something else I learned: You get what you pay for. Specifically, if you pay $10 to hire "everything you need for a weekend of snow camping and skiing", what-you-pay-for includes skis that are 20cm too long (they were out of my size, but "she'll be right, mate!"), a broken ski boot, and a sleeping bag that absolutely, no matter what they say, is not rated for minus degree temperatures (even when inside it you are wearing three pairs of socks, thermals, trackpants, pajama pants, jeans, a t-shirt, a long-sleeved t-shirt, a polar fleece, a pajama top, a thick ski jacket, two hats, a scarf and two pairs of gloves).

A catalogue of my (thankfully minor) injuries:

• A slight lack of skin down one arm (when you are sliding rapidly on your side down a hill towards a cliff, you start to really hope that enough skin will attach to the ice that it will provide a little bit of friction).
• A chunk missing from the back of one foot (see broken ski boot, above).
• A pulled leg muscle (from doing the splits one of the two times I did attempt to use the skis)
• Bruises all down one leg (that sliding rapidly down a hill thing)
• Cuts all over both hands (a falling forward onto ice thing)

Most of these happened at the start of the first day's six-hour "walk". (I prefer to refer to it as a "valiant uphill struggle against wind and ice, heroically ignoring searing pain and the fact that I couldn't lift my right leg more than 5cm in the air.")

At least there were wombats.