Barbara B.'s Adventures: It's a beautiful day

7:30am - What a difference the sun makes. I'm still not too keen on a carpool time this early and am feeling a little tired, but got off to a good start for the day:

Stretched & focused on breathing.
Mentally walked myself through a massage. It may sound hokey, but it felt good. When I'm back I'll have to book a real massage.
Had a healthy breakfast.
Also just stumbled across this.

Enjoy the mountains or whatever you're all up to today :-)

9:25pm - Wow! I so needed a day like today. The weather delivered with not a cloud in the sky, and the temperature was comfy for a t-shirt all day. The only thing that there was still too much of is snow. While the Copeland book again warned not to attempt the Buller and North Buller Passes circuit before late July, I felt that that was a touristy rating and we'd be able to do it. Well, the Copelands seem to know their stuff. When we fianlly realized around 2pm that we wouldn't be able to get to North Buller Pass, let alone complete the circuit, we took a vote: lose elevation to try to gain the pass, or head up. All of us voted to head up, so up we went, to the edge of Mount Buller. I don't know what level of scramble it's in Kane, so we went as far as was kind of a difficult hike/easy scramble. The views were breathtaking everywhere and we must have spent just as much time sitting around and enjoying the scenery throughout the day as we did hiking. The first half of the trail was completely clear, then it was postholing through snow to our thighs before getting out of the snow on the sunny slope. One group member had a very unfortunate fall that looked absolutely horrible from above. They lost their traction, went over at least a six-foot boulder, ended up going head first, and then continued tumbling down a steep slope for another ten metres or so. I was convinced that this would not have a good ending, but miraculously there were only some bruises and scrapes, as well as a broken phone. I was so relieved when I saw this person move their hand, then sit up. The return was a fair bit quicker and we were back at the cars around 6:30pm. Distance covered was about 12km and elevation somewhere in the 800m-1,000m range.

Mount Buller