Things don't always go as planned...

Photo above: Guerillas in the mist?

Sometimes, despite the best of planning, mother nature can throw a bloody great spanner in the works and stuff things up well and truly...
A couple of nights ago local riders Reon Boe, Stu "Chucky" Greig, Jarna Mackenzie & I did what turned out to be quite possibly the stupidest mountain biking photo mission of all time.
At 730 last Tuesday we rendevouzed at the Coronet Peak Ski Area top car park, put our winter woolies and our night lights on and started pushing and riding our bikes to the top.
Now if it was just riding at night on snow and ice on a ski-field on a freezing night in the middle of winter I wouldn't rate it that highly on the stupidity scale.
Unfortunately, despite the skies being clear and the stars twinkling as we drove up Coronet Peak, by the time we got there the mountain had been swallowed by the fog. Thinking (rather optimistically as it turned out) that the cloud would lift we pushed on. Stu and Jarna rode up the Enduro track and didn't have too bad a time of it, but Reon had his DH bike and I had a 15kg camera pack and tripod on my back so we decided to push up the M1.
Even with our powerful night lights visibility was about two feet and it was only the fact that I have spent a fair bit of time pushing bikes up Coronet Peak that stopped us from getting totally and utterly lost.
Eventually we reached the top of the Enduro track and re-united with Stuey and Jarna. We shot a few photos - I kind of felt I had to after all the effort of getting up there - and then got the hell out of Dodge.
The ride down was full on. Hard-packed frozen snow made traction interesting in a couple of places at the top but all in all the grip was pretty good. The only problem was the fact that you couldn't see where you were going...
Anyway, we all got down safe and sound, albeit with frozen fingers and raging appetites!
Luckily I was able to offer the boys cheap red wine, lamb shanks appetizers and a big bowl of pasta to thank them for the effoirts!
In fact it went so well, all things considered, that I might do it again tonight! Here are a few foggy photos from our little adventure...
Big thanks to Reon, Stu and Jarna for freezing their arses off to shoot photos in zero visibility!

Photo above: Jarna rails a frozen Coronet corner...