This year’s Mountain journal magazine is now starting to pop up in various places around the high country. Our ‘distribution strategy’ (such as it is) mostly revolves around me chucking a few magazines in my pack or car as I wander around the Alps. So its all pretty haphazard, and reflects where I get to, which means they don’t get placed right across the Alps. But the 2024 edition is now out there, in spots as random as Cope hut, Moscow Villa and Bluff Spur hut on Mt Stirling.

That means the feedback starts. Its always great to get a message from someone who has found one in a hut. The most common spot is Mt Wills, and mostly from people who are walking the Australian Alps Walking Track (AAWT). The next most common spot is Derrick hut (maybe because I’m out there often, so its easy to keep stocked up).

The messages are normally warm and heartfelt, and sometimes lead to people then writing for the magazine or website (such as this poem from Stephen Whiteside about Cleve Cole hut on Mt Bogong).

This year has been special, and a bit different. I got a couple of abusive messages about my ‘greenie crap’. Then I got a wonderful long and rambling rant that was a conspiracy theorists fever dream: how many acronyms and buzz words can you fit into a single message? (Lots, as it turns out). Many of the old faves: the WEF, WHO, global cabal, covid vaccines, George Soros (who is paying us greenies to destroy the timber industry, to which I say ‘If Only’). Plus, some of the feral horse people chipped in as well. I stopped engaging with them a few years ago, but they do seem as bad tempered as they were in the good old days. I suggested to one of the guys (yes, its always guys) who complained about the content (‘it is full of bushwalking crap’) that he start his own magazine and call it Mountain Redneck Journal and he told me he would – and that it wouldn’t have bullshit greenie stuff. I look forward to the first edition!

In fact the best mountain related conspiracy theory I ever heard was from some of the feral horse people: Apparently Dan Andrews (while premier) had done a deal with the Chinese to build a Very Fast Train from Sydney to Melbourne which would be built through the mountains. The Chinese were then going to build a string of ski resorts between Falls Creek and Thredbo (where exactly?). Then Chinese tourists would be flown in and brought by train to enjoy the resorts. They needed to get rid of the horses first, then they were going to exclude people from the parks, so no one knew about the Chinese. I really don’t know what these people are smoking, but its not doing them any good.

Anyway, I digress. Just to say thanks for the feedback and please keep it coming.

And please consider writing something for the journal or website.

For those folks out on the AAWT, you may enjoy the feature on the Alps Walking Track in this year’s edition.

Mountain Journal magazine