You Don’t Need Skis or a Snowboard to Enjoy The Remarkables!

~03/08/2019~

Lake Alta in the Snow

So, I moved to Queenstown, and I’m not participating in snow sports this year. I know… I know…

How many hobbies can one have in life? I choose this year to save up money to finance replacing some of my older beat up gear and not take up new hobbies. It was decided that I wasn’t going to miss out on fresh snowfall, and wanted to see what Lake Alta in the snow looked like.

I drove to the bottom car park and immediately got a hitch with two guys. My little hatchback was no match for this road without chains. Whilst fitting chains, sunrise peaked and brought some light to what was not an easy set of chains to put on.

The ski field had yet to open by the time I started my little adventure. Some nice graded snow made for easy walking. My destination though, was behind Lake Alta in the snow, at the base of Double Cone (the mountain). I wanted to reach the pass and look into the next valley, but it depended on the conditions. The forecast for the day was good early, but windy and raining in the afternoon.

It wasn’t really ideal crampon conditions with deep powder snow, but I put them on anyway as I had just bought a new set of Grivel G10 Wide Crampons, and wanted to test them out. Some snowdrifts I sunk in to my waist!

It took some battling to climb the hill to the lake, but I made it. I was almost tempted to walk on it for some nostalgia to some lakes I crossed on the Pacific Crest Trail’s Sierra Nevada mountain section.

The wind at this point started to pick up and whip snow dust around. Luckily, I was quite warm with 4 upper layers, and 2 lower layers. My new North Face outer shell was much better than my old green Marmot cheapy, which was pretty beat up now.

I started making my way up the side of Lake Alta toward the pass. This was very hard going and each step was only a few centimetres at a time. When I looked back, I saw three cross-country skiers making their way across the lake. Much better to walk across with flat skis than spiky crampons!

It was around here where the wind really stepped up its game and became strong. I was about two-thirds of the way up to the pass when it became hard to progress. I had to cover my face with my buff and my sunglasses were inadequate. Next time, I was definitely considering some ski goggles for my next snow hike! The wind was coming from behind, and it wasn’t too bad heading up aside from the sheer effort of trudging through knee-waist deep snow. However, I didn’t want to have to head down with the wind throwing ice spears into my face with limited visibility, so I turned back.

It’s like a sandstorm, but snow! How beautiful is it! Was pretty epic to watch despite the barrage and difficulty.

Once I got back down towards the lake the wind was less intense. However, looking back up you can see it was still crazy up high. There was no evidence of my footprints on the way back down! The snow did a good cleaning job.

Overall, it was a cool little 3 hour trip to Lake Alta in the snow, and I was very happy with all my near gear purchases. The crampons were very useful on some icy sections in the end. Although I have decided I need slightly thicker gloves (I have ultralight ones, and then a pair of ski gloves that are too thick).