Ben Lomond.. well part way

It was one of those days where the weather forecast was contradictory, and after another nice breakfast down at Thai Siam, I met Ken back at Southern Laughter and suggested we go climb the mountain out the back. It looks a bit dodgy outside, but we make the call and off we go to the DOC for further information. They tell us we should be able to make it to the "saddle", but maybe no further. It's already midday, so we realise that we're pressed for time, so that's fine, we'll just go as far as we can. We head on over to where the gondola normally runs up (closed t'til June 7th) the slope to the Ledge Bungy, Luge and Skyline Restaurant part way up, and take the steepish track up. Eventually it changes into a 4WD track which is an easy walk up.


No big task here, and we arrive at the top at about the same time that the weather starts to clear and a small bunch of sight seeing tourists arrive with the bungy company just to have a look at the snow covered bungy ledge in action. Seeing as they aren't going, I offer to jump for them if they allow a free one, but instead the operator of the bungy goes for a running jump instead.



We settle for making it up this far, but while discussing with the bungy operators, they say the track up to the Ben Lomond peak is just around the corner, and say it would only take about 2 hours, but maybe not in this weather. So off we trot. They shout out, "we'll read about you in the paper!"


The track starts out going out via the top of the Luge with a light dusting of the forest in snow, and gradually gets thicker and thicker. As we leave the forest behind, we hear what sounds like sheep... sheep up here? No... mountain goats it seems.





The weather is staying good, and now every step is deep in snow and in parts up to knee level. Ken's not too keen as he's wearing jeans so he's now wet and cold. Realistically, we didn't expect to see snow this thick so soon. Maybe up towards the peak, but not near the "saddle".



As it turns out, the cloud starts to return up at our altitude, and the snow starts falling. Looking at the GPS, it seems we're not far away from where the track splits into the Moonlight track and the continuation up to Ben Lomond peak (1748m) which is what we understand is the beginning of the saddle, so as expected we'll have to leave the full track for another day.