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Trip report

2008-08-09	Cross Country Skiing at Broken Dam Hut
Trip report:
With other people’s busy social commitments and calendar challenges, the party was reduced to the two of us.  Rick and I made a get away from Sydney on Friday afternoon.  We arrived at Adaminaby about midnight and spent the night in Rick’s truck.  Adaminaby was still in “sleepy hollow” mode at 7am the next morning so we headed on to Kiandra.  By this stage light snow was falling but after shoveling down the requisite load of calories we pressed on.  The aim of the weekend had now become an overnighter to the new Broken Dam Hut. We headed along the Table Top Fire Trail towards Four Mile Hut.  New snow was topping up the cover but reducing visibility dramatically.  It also made going a bit of trudge.  We arrived at Four Mile Hut late morning, the snow was now constant.  Within a short time we were joined by several other parties.  Clearly there would be no room at this inn tonight.   The new arrivals were all talking in foreboding terms of a revised forecast of a front with “coldest weather of the year so far” and snow to 600m early on Sunday, rather than late in the day as previously announced.  Despite the grim news we pressed on for the remaining 3.5km. After more snow and slow going we arrived at Broken Dam Hut mid afternoon.  This hut was a rebuilt last November.  The original one is now a ruin of corrugated iron that was burnt down in 1998.  The new hut is a spacious arrangement but this makes it very hard to keep it warm inside.  The last entry in the log book recorded the overnight temperature in the hut at minus 3 celsius.   That reading seemed pretty accurate for our night as well. Based on the weather forecast we decided to get up before dawn and head out at first light.  I listened to each rustle outside wondering if that was the arrival of the strong winds.  Shortly after 6am we departed.  By this stage the wind was strengthening but not to the level we were expecting.  However snow throughout the night had rendered the cover thick.  The little glide we had yesterday was gone and each metre forward was very much a plod. By midday we reached Kiandra and the weather seemed to be clearing.  Where was this cold front?  We asked a few day visitors milling about if they had heard a weather update.  They told us the front had already been through that morning!   So back in the car we headed home dismissing all this weather talk as an anticlimax.  Or so it seemed until around Goulburn a weather system moved through dropping thick snow flakes all over the Hume Highway.  Exactly where and what this weather system had been up to remains a mystery. Report by: Grant

Photos from the Club's photo library

Kiandra to Broken Dam Hut 2008

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Grant at Four Mile Hut

Broken Dam Hut

Broken Dam Hut

In Broken Dam Hut

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