The Craigieburn Valley: A photo essay

During my time at Broken River (yes, this is another old post I've found on my laptop) I was looking at a lot of National Geographics. Not only are they a fine source of educational material which is in short supply in White Star Chalet, but if you're lucky they'll contain photos of boobs, which is almost like meeting a real woman.

One of the things that most impressed me about these magazines were their photo essays. I quite like the idea that by putting the word "photo" in front of the word "essay" you can take all of the difficulties of essay writing (like using words) and replace them with the even more baffling difficulties of photography. Having struggled with words on many occaisions while writing essays, the though of struggling to take and use good photos was quite refreshing.

And so, this is my homage to the photo essay genre. Of course, I suck at taking photos so it's going to be terrible, but hopefully you'll recognise the form that I'm working towards even if the content leaves something to be desired...

Craigieburn: A Photo Essay

In late September, I was commissioned by staff at the Broken River Ski Field to ski over Hamilton Peak and into the wilds of the Craigieburn Valley Ski Area. Renowned for it's intimidating terrain and even more intimidating staff, this area bears little resemblance to its friendly and laid-back neighbour, even though the two fields are so close together.

At White Star, every day starts by opening this red door. Unless you go out the fire escape, which no one does because it’s a weird trap-door. And that doesn’t include days where you don’t leave the hut. Such days leave one feeling particularly sordid, but then I guess you could also say that such days don’t start in an important sense, so the point still stands (except for the fire escape).

Many tourists have been cruelly lured to the top of these stairs by the empty promise of groomed runs and chairlifts.

At Palmer Lodge, Barratt (far right) explains the finer points of using zinc cream in the same quantities and manner as regular sunscreen. Dan (centre) wonders whether any day trippers will come up at all if word gets out that there is no chairlift.

On the other side of Hamilton Peak (the highest point on the horizon) lies the Craigieburn Valley, my destination for today. A group of skiers from Craigieburn has already arrived at Broken River seeking friendly staff and fashionable merchandise.

Substituting zinc cream for sunscreen not only provides SPF1000 sun protection that won’t come off without a belt sander, it also acts as a convenient disguise. And as you sweat and it runs into your mouth, you get 4500% of your RDI of zinc.

I change shirt on the Broken River side of Hamilton Peak before heading into unfamiliar and hostile terrain. Wearing BR merchandise in the Craigieburn Valley combines great skiing with annoying other people and should be considered one of life’s treasures.

The view from the sun deck at Craigieburn with the famous Middle Basin chutes behind me on the left. The rope tows will stop soon and the locals are becoming increasingly agitated about my shirt. I decide to beat a hasty retreat before the mood deteriorates and the snow hardens back up in the shade.

These footprints mark my return to Broken River, where people wait to hear whether anyone got irritated by my shirt. They also mark the change from spring skiing to fresh powder turns.

The last run of the day is to the BR car park, a few hundred metres past the last line of visible snow on the left side of the valley. Although it snowed several days ago, this is BR in September, so no one has bothered to come out here to ski this line. The top half of this run will be fresh turns.