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Backcountry film festival showing September 12

The BCFF is produced each year by the Winter Wildlands Alliance as a celebration of the human-powered experience and a gathering place for the backcountry snowsports community.

We are offering one more showing of the festival in Melbourne for 2017.

Tuesday 12 September.

This year’s Winter Wildlands Alliance festival features eleven films. For full details on these, please check here. PLEASE NOTE that these are the same films that were shown in May at Melbourne University.

There will be two shows – one at 7pm and one at 9pm.

Venue: Longplay Bar and Cinema

318 St Georges Rd, Fitzroy North.

Tickets $15

Because it’s a licensed venue, please no children.

Funds raised will go to Mountain Sports Collective.

This is a small venue so we are asking people to let us know they’re coming so we can put a ticket aside. Please email Team Snowsense, saying which of the sessions you will be at.
snowsensepatrol1@gmail.com

OR: leave a note in the Snowsense facebook page under the film festival event and we will reserve you a ticket.

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The ‘Good Vibes’ snowboard camp – getting at risk youth to the snow

This is a great initiative: getting at risk young people up to the snow to try snowboarding.

“Every year The Good Vibes Foundation works together with Youth Off The Streets to take 20 kids aged 14-16 years old snowboarding for the 1st time!!.

We spend 2 full days on snow at Thredbo where the kids have lessons and learn to snowboard with instructors and a group of amazing volunteers.

To keep this amazing program running we need to raise money to help pay for costs such as, petrol, accommodation and food”.

You can donate here.

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Significant forest destruction proposed for Dinner Plain

Mountain Journal has previously reported on a plan to clear 1.8 hectares of Sub-alpine Woodland just adjacent to the Dinner Plain village to create an ‘Elite Training Facility’ (now called the ‘Village Green’).

The current proposal is to create a ‘large flat open grassed area approximately 90 m wide and 150 m long’. An access road and car parking along two sides of the grassed area are proposed, as well as public toilet facilities. A report prepared for Council describes it ‘as a community space (which) is large enough to facilitate sporting events such as polo, horse riding, and high altitude elite athlete training.’

Alpine Shire Council has committed to the delivery of $1,500,000 worth of capital works projects within Dinner Plain by 2027; and says that this will be funded by the Dinner Plain reserve (currently approximately $1,000,000) and additional funds as allocated by Council.

It now needs to decide whether to proceed with the proposal.

Continue reading “Significant forest destruction proposed for Dinner Plain” →

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Blizzard of Oz 3.0?

Another mass of extremely cold air has hit the Alps, with snowfalls occurring to low levels, and the intense weather is expected to continue for much of the week. MountainWatch has declared it to be ‘the storm of the season’, even better than the ‘Blizzard of Oz’. Apart from lots of fresh, the current storm does bring blizzard conditions, the possibility of lightning in some areas, and the likelihood of increased avalanche risk on steeper slopes.

Continue reading “Blizzard of Oz 3.0?” →

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Final details World Telemark Day, Mt Hotham, Sept 2

According to the poll, we have a slight majority keen to go sidecountry.
 
Let’s aim to go out to Mt Loch and possibly Machinery Spur, etc.
 
Please come prepared for an outing: lunch, water, skins, etc.
 
The skiing out at Loch is quite varied, so will suit all levels of skier. Its about a 70 min ski to get out there.
 
Let’s meet in or right outside the day shelter at the top of the Heavenly Valley chairlift. Its a 1 min walk from Loch carpark, or a 10 min walk up the road from Hotham central if you don’t have a lift pass.
 
Meet at 9am this saturday Sept 2, for a 9.15am departure.
 
I reckon I will ski in resort on the sunday, and would welcome anyone who wants to join me.
 
My mobile, if you’re lost or late: 0419338047
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Another slide at Bogong, skier caught

There has been another significant avalanche on Mt Bogong, with a skier being caught in the slide and carried around 80 metres. They are OK.

The following comes from Mountain Safety Collective/ SnowSense.

Continue reading “Another slide at Bogong, skier caught” →

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Backcountry Film Festival at Harrietville

CELEBRATING THE WINTER HUMAN-POWERED EXPERIENCE
The Backcountry Film Festival is produced each year by Winter Wildlands Alliance as a celebration of the human-powered experience and a gathering place for the backcountry snowsports community. Winter Wildlands Alliance is a nonprofit organization working at the national level to inspire and educate the backcountry community to protect and care for their winter landscapes. Funds raised at each screening stay in the local community to support human-powered recreation and conservation efforts, winter education and avalanche/safety programs and to raise awareness of winter management issues.

For a full listing of the films in the festival please check here.
Thursday August 31

Harrietville Community Hall
210 Great Alpine Rd, Harrietville, Victoria 3741

Starts at 6.30pm.
Fundraising event by Mountain Sports Collective & Harrietville Community Hall
Soup and Drinks available
Entry: $10 Adults / $20 Family

Facebook page for the event here.

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Riding for the Great Forest National Park, September 2

Aidan Kempster has been raising profile about the proposal for the Great Forest National Park through riding the trails and roads of the Central Highlands, VIC.

He is offering a guided ride through a section of the Central Highlands on Saturday September 2. Aidan describes it as ‘a free, self-supported day of cycling in Toolangi State Forest. Bring your own bike, repair kit, water, wet weather gear and snacks’.

Full details available here.

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Telemark Day at Hotham, September 2

We’re getting close to World Telemark Day. There will be an informal gathering at Mt Hotham on saturday September 2.

All welcome. Free event. If we have a mix of abilities, we may split into two groups. Please remember to fill out the poll if you’re coming so we can decide whether we’re going to ski in resort or backcountry.

Full details here.

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Its Here. The ‘Blizzard of Oz 2.0’

After that depressing rain, the snow is back – with a vengeance. Weather is wild in most mountain areas right now. But enjoy it once the winds drop.

Hotham is reporting ’25 cm of cold dry snow in the last 24hrs’.

Mt Buller is reporting ’15cm fresh on top of 10cm yesterday and still falling’ (It’s going to be ‘EPIC’ says the over hyped snow guy on their daily video update).

Thredbo is calling the storm the ‘Blizzard of Oz 2.0′, with ’40cm of fresh in the last 24 hours’, and Perisher is reporting ’50 cm’ in the same time period.

Please check road conditions before heading to resorts and consider taking a chain saw if you’re accessing the backcountry via unpatrolled roads.

Apart from all the resort websites, there is a list of snow reporting and forecast sites available here.

The image at the top is the MountainWatch forecast from this morning.

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Splitfest 2017 is on in 10 days

Just a reminder that the NSW Splitfest DownUnder will be held on weekend of the 25 – 27th of August in the NSW main range.
Register here.
There is the usual friday night entertainment at the Jindabyne Bowling Club in the downstairs room, starting @ 6pm 12 Bay St, Jindabyne NSW, camping up at Island Bend in the national park, and a tour out of Guthega on the saturday.

For full details please check here.

 

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Australian snow pack in decline since 1957

Anyone who is paying attention to the state of our winters knows that they are getting more erratic. Often they start later (it’s a rare thing to ski on natural snow on opening weekend) and subject to more rain events, with big impacts on snow pack. While our climatic patterns go through natural wetter and drier cycles, climate science tells us that these patters will become more extreme, with less overall snow and shorter seasons.

Anecdotes and personal experience are one thing. But when did the snow pack actually start to decline?

While all resorts track snowfall, the benchmark of snowfall in Australia over time comes from Spencers Creek, at a site at 1,800 metres above sea level, in the Main Range of the Snowy Mountains. The following article comes from ABC Rural and gives a sense of the decades worth of data that is available from this site, and the process of getting the data. The measuring site was originally established to give the Snowy Hydro managers a sense of what water was trapped in the snow pack and hence how much water would be released in the spring. As skiers and riders, what it gives us is a long term summary of the trends in snowpack over the past six decades.

The take home message is that, overall, snowpack has been declining for decades and unabated climate change will make that worse. While the article does not drill into this issue in detail, previous analysis of this data by Terry Giesecke suggests that:

“There has been a downwards trend (in snow pack) from 1957 to 1989. It then goes up dramatically for about four years, before resuming a downwards path”. This research suggests that the increase in snow depth between 1990 and 1994 could have been due to global cooling which occurred as a result of major volcanic activity in the Philippines in 1991. Using data collected up until 2016, it also notes:

“There is evidence of further decline in the first 16 years of the 21st century.”

The full article is below.

Continue reading “Australian snow pack in decline since 1957” →

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