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Heading off ecological collapse in the mountains

Snow Gums are the classic alpine tree of the Australian High Country. And they’re now at risk.
Snow gums can survive fire. However, climate change driven fire seasons are leading to more frequent fire, which is causing more death of trees and changes to forest structure. Dieback, which is caused by a native beetle, but becoming more damaging due to the effects of climate change, is devastating large sections of the high country. In many places, localised ecological collapse is now occurring.

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The Victorian Protected Areas Council

We all know that national parks and other public land managers really struggle to get the funds needed to look after the conservation estate. In Victoria, there have been steady cut backs in staffing. Parks Victoria (PV) now manages around 18% of Victoria’s land and coastal waters with fewer full-time staff than when it was established in 1996. Its permanent workforce shrank by 12% last year.

Now, a group of former PV staff have joined together to lobby for better funding for national parks and other protected areas. The Victorian Protected Areas Council (VPAC) brings together experienced park managers and rangers. You can read more below.

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An unofficial history of the Backcountry Festival

Back in the depths of time, I used to organise an annual World Telemark Day get together at Mt Hotham on the first Saturday in September. It happened for 5 or 6 years and eventually some friends convinced me to shift it over to Falls Creek because of the strong tele community there.

In moving it over, the world tele day gathering became the first Victorian backcountry festival and it happened over the weekend of September 1 and 2, 2018. Eight years later, and having survived the lockdown years, when we were forced to take the festival online, and some grim winters of limited snowpack, the Victorian backcountry festival has grown into an enduring and well supported annual event. It has now become the Australian backcountry festival, and will happen in and around Mt Hotham resort in late August 2025.

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Dark Days while we wait for the White

I love my backcountry trips and my traditions of getting into the Big Wild. The annual multi day walk in lutruwita/ Tasmania with some mates, the new years eve wander and camp out on Mt Stirling, the road trip to the Snowy Mountains in May. I notice sometimes that half the enjoyment comes from planning and then reflecting on the trip (especially when the actual trip ends up being Type 2 fun).

But this year has been different. After two grim winters, I’ve been obsessing over the forecasts for this season. And as we know they aren’t great. I know that we will get a break at some point, that we will continue to get good and bad winters. But as we pass through another warm autumn, it really does feel like we have crossed some invisible tipping point. As happened with bushfires in the mountains, which suddenly did a ‘step change’ in intensity in the early 2000s, you have to wonder if we have stepped over into a new world where, in Australia at least, our snow pack resembles the boom and bust cycles that have long dominated mountain snow in Tasmania, and less like the consistent snow pack we have generally relied on here on the mainland.

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Late start to winter expected

As we wait for winter snows, every skier, rider and winter enthusiast is scanning the weather and reading the pre season forecasts.

As was reported recently on Weatherzone here April was exactly 1°C warmer than the long-term average across Australia, but the warmth was even more pronounced in Victoria, where temperatures were 2.37°C higher than the long-term average.

That made it Victoria’s warmest April since national record-keeping commenced in 1910, while for Australia as a whole it was the 14th-warmest.

With sustained warm weather and clear skies, no one is really banking on a great season. But after two dire winters, we all need a break, especially the businesses who rely on good snowfalls and a long season.

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Become a friend of Mountain Journal

Love the mag? Become a Friend of Mountain Journal for $20 a year to support future publications!

Here’s the thing… we might have fooled you with our sleek magazine into thinking we’re a super professional setup, but we’re actually a very grassroots operation.

From the start, Mountain Journal has deliberately been a free, non-commercial magazine: available to anyone online and offline in huts and villages through the alps, bringing you stories of local community members having great adventures and working to protect the mountains, made possible by generous contributions of writing and photography.

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Australian backcountry festival 2025

The Victorian backcountry festival is back for it’s 8th year. And in 2025, has become the Australian BC Fest.

It will be the same format as usual – hosted at Mt Hotham resort, with tours, workshops, parties, speakers program, repair cafe, and more.

The festival is a 100% volunteer run community festival. The organising committee is working hard to deliver another great festival.

Chuck it in your diary: friday – sunday 29 – 31 August.

Facebook page here.

Website here.

Enjoy. Explore. Protect. Backcountry.

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Crushed by snow

This story, written by Stephen Whiteside, chronicles the life and times of the now gone Summit Hut on Mt Bogong.

It was published in the 2025 print edition of Mountain Journal magazine (details here).

Header image: the Summit Shelter Hut, September 1938. From SCHUSS magazine.

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Six Peaks Speak

Celebrating International Mountain Day on Country: An Inspiration and Vision from Six Peaks Speak

Honorary Professor Barry Golding AM, Federation University, writes:

I had the huge privilege as a State Library Victoria Creative Fellow in 2023. I spent a whole year researching and writing a book about six modest mountains on Country near where I live in central Victoria. It was undertaken with the strong support of DJAARA for the Dja Dja Wurrung Traditional Owners. ‘Six Peaks Speak: Unsettling Legacies in Southern Dja Dja Wurrung Country’ published in 2024 on International Mountain Day (IMD, which is celebrated globally each year on 11 December) is my main tangible outcome. I am hopeful, like DJAARA, that future celebrations of other Australian mountains on Country might become an enduring legacy. This is my story and vision.

Header image: Lalkambuk / Mount Franklin’s pine covered, breached volcanic crater (Drone Photo: Oliver Zimmermann).

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The snow gums of Baw Baw

From Matt Tomkins.

This photo essay was originally published in the Mountain Journal magazine, 2025 edition, available here.

The last few winters I’ve become a bit obsessed with making trips to see the snow gums in  Baw Baw National Park.

Snow gums are beautiful trees. To see them at their best, you really need to be up there in winter. Streaked with incredibly vibrant reds, bronzes, oranges, and yellows and covered \with ice, their vivid colours and twisted forms stand out like flames against a snowy backdrop. It’s one of the most magical things about winter in the Australian Alps, and it’s a sight that can’t be seen anywhere else in the world.

I feel an increasing sense of urgency about making these trips.

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First Australian screening of Papsura: Peak of Evil

The backcountry film festival is a pre winter institution in Melbourne. We have been screening the festival each year since 2011. This is a first announcement for the 2025 screening and a call for local backcountry films to be included in the festival.

The festival will happen on Sunday May 11, 2025.

Apart from the program of films produced by the Winter Wildlands Alliance, the festival will freature the first Australian screening of Papsura: Peak of Evil.

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Mountain Journal magazine #5 now available

The Mountain Journal magazine is now in its 5th year of production. We print 1,000 copies and distribute it for free through mountain and valley towns between Melbourne and Canberra during autumn each year. This year we had a guest editor – Anna Langford, who has produced an absolutely gorgeous magazine with the assistance of designer Tess Sellar and beautiful images from a range of people including Matt Tomkins.

The theme delves into what is happening to Winter. As Anna says in her introduction: “Long, deep winters are fast becoming folk tales of the past. But there is still so much to love, and so much we can do to act. To talk about our alpine winters is to lament what we’ve lost, celebrate
what we still have, record it for collective memory, and impel each other to step up and take action“.

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