Great photo's Michael, David and Scott! I have to agree with your sentiments about snow on Kaputar. I was up there around 4 weeks ago camping and would have loved to have seen snow falling. I was amazed at how high the summit really is. The views from the top are simply breathtaking. Looking west across the Piliga, I had visions of Supercells rolling across the plains towards Narrabri!
Yesterday's trip to the Oberon area certainly far surpassed my expectations I had when I got out of bed at 5am that morning! Picked up Dann at 6am and headed straight towards the Oberon Road turn off at Hartley. The sunrise was just too good to resist thanks to the leading edge of the ECL cloud band moving north over us. A few snaps later and the clear calm conditions changed as we got in the car and enetered Oberon. Around 5 - 10cm of snow had covered the town and the sky had turned grey. Light rain and sleet was falling in town so we knew we had to get somewhere higher. We headed down the old Abercrombie Road from Oberon thinking that this was the way to Shooters Hill (Note to self - take a map when chasing). Around 10 minutes into the journey, Dann politely informed me that we were in fact on the wrong road. Hindsight would show that this accidental move was probably the best of the day.
We had come too far to turn around and with sleet still falling we looked for a road that seemed to head to higher ground. Thats when we saw the turn off to Mozart. Memories of my visit to Mozarts house in a snow filled Vienna came flooding back. I sarcastically thought to myself "Surely it has to be a sign".
Around 1 to 2kms on this road, Dann and I found what we were looking for. A rise in elevation turning the wet sleet into snow flakes. Even better was the Vulcan State Forest covered in snow , beckoning for us to venture inside and explore. Over the next 4 hours we did that with constant snow falling ranging in small wet flakes to some extremely large and fluffy flakes. I had only been expecting to see snow on the ground so the snow falling from above was an added bonus. Meet up with Matt Smith, Andrew Newton and Cheryl later on and continued exploring the wonderful snowy sights and roads this forest had to offer.
A great chase made even better by the constant snow fall. Just that 100m difference in altitude seemed to make all the difference. This was also the first time I had taken the Forester on some serious snow driving and all I can say is .. wow!
I dont think I can remember such an active snow year for the NSW ranges before.
More images of the day can be found at
http://sydneystormchasers.com/image/tid/56James
