dryfter: (photographer)
Toby "dryfter" Wintermute ([personal profile] dryfter) wrote2009-08-11 09:11 pm
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Skiing accident

Skiing was fun.
Five of us drove up to Mansfield on Friday night, and stayed in this bungalow on a farm, full of beds, about half an hour drive from Mt Buller.

Each morning, we piled into my Subaru at 8am, which I was rather surprised could actually manage to fit five adults plus all their skis, boots, clothes, etc into it, and I drove us to the mountain. In the evening I drove us back while everyone else napped..

Buller itself claimed to have 75cm average snow depth, but this seemed to be a blatant lie.. The bottom parts of the mountain had about 0 to 5 cm of cover, which surely means the top half would need 150cm to average out at 75cm.. However it was more like 20-30cm cover around there at best. *shrug* oh well, it was definitely skiable - you just often had to load onto the lifts halfway down, instead of all the way.

I was pleasantly surprised to discover that I don't seem to have forgotten how to ski, despite not having been on a mountain for about eight years. Also a pleasant surprise was discovering that the best snow seemed to be on a particular valley that only had black runs on it, thus ensuring that the lift at the bottom never had any queues on it.

I did have a bit of a stack on Sunday, and it was a good and proper one, where you spend five minutes walking up the mountain picking up your skies, poles and items of clothing. Unfortunately it seems my camera copped a battering in the process - see the photo below!
Luckily I was just carrying around a budget point-and-shoot that I have precisely for occasions where I don't want to risk the D700, so it's not a great loss. I am slightly disappointed that the screen broke though, but I guess it must have copped a ski binding or something to the back of it while I tumbled down the mountain.
I had contemplated taking the old Nikon FE up the mountain, as it's practically indestructable - however maybe it's for the best.. I suspect if I landed hard on it, I'd be more likely to break a rib than to break a camera!

Accident!

[identity profile] rhoftonphoto.livejournal.com 2009-08-11 12:52 pm (UTC)(link)
seems you did a great job of ruining the camera, glad to know it wasn't the D700 that really would of sucked.

[identity profile] wintrmute.livejournal.com 2009-08-11 01:08 pm (UTC)(link)
Yeah, well, quite the reason I wasn't going to take the D700 up there! :)

The Canon is still usable, in a way.. The photos that come off it look OK, it's just the screen on the back that's a bit knackered. :(

[identity profile] rhoftonphoto.livejournal.com 2009-08-12 08:43 am (UTC)(link)
it's sure not much fun when the screens are stuffed, one of my point and shoots got stepped on and the screen cracked. atleast if needed it can sill be used.

[identity profile] karohemd.livejournal.com 2009-08-11 03:17 pm (UTC)(link)
At least you can still see some of the picture. When I killed the screen on my old Fuji compact, it was completely dead.
(I had it in a belt bag and crushed it between a table and my belt buckle when my head blew up and I died rather dramatially during a Mage LARP)