Eskdale Spur is infamous for mishaps!I cannot imagine how one manages the forward route (going up) in snowshoes?? Crampons or mid-shoe spikes and a pole or two, yes, but just snowshoes? How? Some rock climbing luminaries have commonly ice-climbed beyond Bivouac Hut.I have had worse than a bum skid, but I realise that too would be painful, so too shredding your exxy $300 bushwalking pants...
I took a side-on tumble on Esky coming down in 1992; it was severe enough to necessitate being eased down painfully slow with two other group walkers (one of whom was a doctor, who thought I may have a broken hip — and this is not the best place to have it with a change of weather heading our way) until we were back down on the flats and he could examine me; could not finish walk wearing pack, so the biggest of the walkers took on my pack on his chest in addition to his own! X-rayed at Bright Hospital late that afternoon — no breaks, but obvious severe bruising from impact with a lose rock and abrasion and they kept me in for observation overnight. A nurse (a Tawonga resident) drove me over to Mountain Creek the next afternoon, reuiniting me with my car and thus began the sore and sorry journey back to Big Town. I think I had two weeks of low-mobility after that. Nothing like it ever since.
Many stories have come and gone of mishaps on Eskdale Spur in similar circumstances — unstable rocks or misplaced footfalls... there are doubtless many, many more more stories of fear and terror of adventurers slipping up on ice (or the fellow who put a icepick through his knee instead of the ice — 2007 I think?).
Of this old photo, the pony-tailed girl there was a med student at Melbourne Uni then. She went on to become an Associate Professor in immunology (Alfred); had a brief professional encounter with her about 20 years ago during microbiology in-service. I have many other pics of the period in dark storage. This Ektachrome slide is one of the better ones that have withstood the passage of time on a par with thousands more Kodachrome slides.
And there is a skier! Trying out his big and
heavy skis way out the back of frame on the slope is one-time SNOWGUM Bendigo owner and fantastically good leader, David Mapleson. Sadly Davo disappeared in the mid-1990s; I think he went on to a career in mining in WA.
I think some sort of minor record has broken today north of the Divide; almost 21°c, and it's July, not September!