The good weather and cross country skiing

For about 5 weeks now we've had settled weather. While great up on the mountains above the cloud it's been pretty dreary in Wanaka town. So there's been quite an incentive to ski tour and of course this leads to the making of landscape photos.

Skidoo tracks near Bob Lee Hut...


The trail to Meadow Hut...


And today the first bad weather showed it's advance guard in the form of these lenticular clouds over the Pisa Range...


We're not far away now from the inaugural Winter Games NZ to be held 21 -30 August 2009, and these are going to huge for the Snow Farm ...more >>

Dog Sledding

I've been up cross country skiing a bit this week, but left it quite late each day. Anything to escape the cloud and see the sun as it's been miserable in Wanaka town itself for weeks now, where as up on the mountains the landscape has been bathed in sun most days.

On one of my regular "beats" a friend of mine was doing a photo shoot with prominent New Zealand dog sledding enthusiasts, so on Thurs. evening I popped into Meadow Hut for a brew and catch up. It was hard to tear myself away from the fire though and get back on the skis for 5 Km back to Lodge...




Once again descending the access road I was struck by the tonal values of the landscape in terms of photography, so stopped to make this quick photograph of the Branch Creek catchment in the Cardrona Valley...


This week I'd like to draw your attention to the wonderful selection of winter photos on James McGregor's Met VUW web site