After a pretty wet and cold Easter holiday it was great to see the weather improving up at Mt Field, enabling volunteers from the Southern Tasmanian Ski Association (STSA) to make some further progress on improving the infrastructure at the Mt Mawson Ski Field.

Our web cam guru, Ian Stewart headed up the mountain on Tuesday, to work on improving the reliability of the snow cameras and the internet connection we use for the Point of Sale terminal in the ticket office. Ian updated the SIM card used for the STSA wi-fi system, and also brought the top camera down the mountain for further upgrades. It is a very harsh environment for electronics, and Ian’s voluntary work to keep the software, electronics, power and telecommunications systems working for the web cameras is first class, and much appreciated.

On Thursday a small team of STSA volunteers spent the day at the ski field continuing the construction of a couple of snow fence panels which are critical for the retention of snow on the Southern side of the Mawson run. The old hardwood snow fences in this particular location had fallen into disrepair, and were well overdue for replacement. Its a multi-stage process to achieve this:

Stage 1 – remove the old hardwood snow fences

Stage 2 – carry up new treated pine sleepers for the replacement fences

Stage 3 –  erect the sleeper tripods

Stage 4 – carry up more slats, sleepers and beams

Stage 5 – attach the final beams and slats to complete the job.

Stages 1 and 2 were completed at the last working bee, and Thursday’s team focussed on Stage 3 – a quite tricky job due to the rocky terrain (which is why the snow fences are needed!) It was a superb day, and by sunset three tripods and two snow fence bays had been successfully framed up.

Stage 1:

Old hardwood snow fence destined for the tip

Stage 2:

Matt Levis, Stefan Vogel, Owen Summers and Matt Davis with sleeper frames carried up the hill

Stage 3:

Craig Larsson, Peter Davis and Rowena Larsson ready materials for erection

Craig, Peter and Rowena with the first snow-fence bay successfully stood up

Karen Davis and Craig Larsson working on the second snow-fence bay

The end of a very rewarding and enjoyable day – photo by Rowena Larsson

A big thanks to Rowena, Craig, Peter and Karen for their efforts in putting the fence frames up for two bays on Thursday.

Stages 4 and 5 for this mini-project will be tackled at the next working bee on the weekend of 22-23 April, together with some general maintenance tasks to ensure the Mt Mawson Ski Field is ready to run as soon as the snow arrives for this season. Final confirmation of the working bee details will be on the website once we have the weekend weather forecast.