NSW 2011 - Guthega Power Station to Tin Hut

I headed out for this trip on Friday 10th June 2011. It was forecast to stay below freezing until Sunday and remain fairly clear so me and my mate Joe were looking forward to a good weekend of snowshoeing. We left the car at Guthega Power Station and headed up the hill. We crossed the bridge and headed along the firetrail alongside Dissapointment spur. It was cold and there was snow even at the power station. We followed the trail for a few k's and then turned into the scrub to head up onto Dissapointment Ridge. I made a bit of a mistake with the nav here and had us turn off the trail way too early. This left us negotiating rough scrub covered in snow to fight our way up onto a crooked ridgeline. If I stayed on the trail until the right moment, the result would have been the same but done in much less time.
Once we got to the section where we should have left the trail to take the ridge, the scrub cleared and the snow covered ridgeline sloped up in front of us. We put the snow shoes on and walked up the ridgeline. There was good cover on top and the views in the crisp freezing air was amazing. We stopped at the disapointment spur trig for lunch. After lunch we trekked on to a broad saddle between Dissapointment Ridge and Mt Gungartan. It was about 4pm so we set up camp and settled in for the night.
In the morning we  wacked our snowshoes again and headed up the ridge on the other side of the saddle and made our way up to the summit of Mt Gungartan. Somewhere around here Joe lost his Black Diamond shovel. After summiting we negotiated our way past Gungartan Pass and sight of the Kerries and down along the correct ridge which descends to Tin Hut. I mucked this up a bit and turned down into the broad gully. This left us negotiating snow covered bushes and creeks where we should have been staying high and dry on the ridge as it terminates into the valley closer to the hut. Once the navigation was resolved we made the hut and lit the fire, settled in and relaxrd for the evening. It was a pretty cool hut particularly in the snow.
On the Sunday we headed along the side of the hill upstream from Tin Hut, trying to stay out of the gully. I mucked this up a bit as well and took a while to find the ridgeline from the day before where it terminates. If I had have gone the right way the day before I might have recognised it. The plan was to head to Schlink Hut via Gungartan pass but rather than follow the same route we opted to take a bee line straight over the Kerries and down the other side to the hut. The prospect of this was a bit more exciting because approaching the Kerries Range from the side it was fairly imposing and steep.
The going in this section was much more interesting and adventurous although it was quite hard work . The rocky terrain blanketed in crisp white snow on the Kerries was spectacular. We basicly cut a bearing up one side and down the other to Schlink Hut. From Schlink Hut we headed over the pass and back down the hill to Guthega  Power Station.
This walk was a great long weekender. The combination of the snap frozen blue sky weather and decent snow cover made perfect conditions for a snowshoing trip.