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Alpine Odyssey Film – Screening Dates Announced, Bookings Open

Alpine Odyssey, a film by Ivan Hexter, tells the story of Huw Kingston’s winter 2022 journey along the 700km length of the Australian Alps, a journey he first undertook 27 years ago. His 50-day traverse also saw him skiing at each of the dozen mainland Australian snow resorts en route.

“It was a journey across country I have loved for decades” said Huw. “A journey to celebrate the mountains and communities that make up this very special, very small part of Australia. But with love also comes concern and care.”

Screenings will raise funds for Save the Children and Protect Our Winters (POW). Whilst the film will be core to each event there will be other elements to entertain and POW will also be presenting details on some of the important work they are doing here in Australia to highlight the impacts of a changing climate.

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AAWT Track Angels – a solution to a long-distance problem!

Long distance walking tracks often attract kind souls who assist the walkers with food, water, beers, lifts, accommodation and other assistance. The ‘Trail Angels’ of the Pacific Crest Trail in the USA are famous for their kindness to hikers. Mick Webster describes the Track Angels of the AAWT.

This was originally published in the 2024 print edition of Mountain Journal magazine (https://themountainjournal.com/mountain-journal-magazine/), which had a series of stories about human powered crossings of the Australian Alps.

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Mountain Journal magazine #4 now online

Once a year we produce the Mountain Journal magazine. It is distributed through mountain and valley towns from Melbourne to Canberra each autumn. 2024 will see the fourth print edition, and will be back from the printers in the next couple of weeks and distributed after that.

In the meantime, please enjoy this PDF of the magazine MJ4.

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655: FOR THE WILD

Running 655km across Australia’s toughest alpine track to save our wild places.

The two of us have always dreamed of running the 655km Australian Alps Walking Track (AAWT). It’s a track spoken of in a quiet reverence, by old hardened hikers who have seen it and done it all. It’s one of the country’s oldest, steeped in Indigenous and colonial history, and is as brutal as it is beautiful (and it is, above all else, beautiful). Ascending a cumulative 35,000m (approximately four times Mt Everest), the track traverses the ridgeline of the Great Dividing Range from an old gold-mining town called Walhalla (two hours’ drive from Melbourne) all the way through to Canberra. Forcing explorers to overcome the extreme heights (and depths) of the majestic Australian Alps across a typically 30 to 40-day journey, the AAWT is not a track to be trifled with.

And that’s why, one summer’s day, we set out to run it – all in an effort to save our wild places. And now we’re asking for your help to share our story.

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The Hills Sisters Ski the AAWT

The Australian Alps Walking Track (AAWT) is the premier long distance walking track through the Australian mountains. It starts in Walhalla in Victoria, crosses the Victorian Alps and the Snowy Mountains and goes almost to the outskirts of Canberra. It is 650 to 704km in length, with an epic 28,000 metres of elevation gain during the length of the walk.

Marita Hills recounts her winter journey along the AAWT with her sister Angela.

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Are we ready for the next Black Summer?

Firefighters say dry lightning has caused more than a dozen fires across Queensland this week, sparking concerns for authorities battling El Niño conditions.

As reported by the ABC, senior meteorologist Steve Hadley from the Bureau of Meteorology said dry lightning occurred when there was no significant rainfall, particularly during “overarching dry conditions”.

“Sometimes with not enough significant rainfall, of a few millimetres or more, that can mean lightning is essentially happening over drier areas and drier terrain with no rain to follow it up,” he said.

“Then you can get some fires starting from that depending on how the landscape is at that time.”

The threat from dry lightning caused fires continues to increase in mountain environments. To take one example, multiple lightning strikes across the Victorian high country on December 31, 2019 resulted in fires developing, including the 44,000 ha Cobungra fire which threatened Omeo, Anglers Rest, and Cobungra.

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Are you suffering from Shifting Baseline Syndrome?

How often do you see an image or vista like this when you’re in the mountains? Whether you drive up from the valley towns through mile after mile of grey alpine ash trunks, or wander, ski or ride through the snow gum ghost forests of the high plains, you are witnessing a world that didn’t exist a generation ago.

Whereas we would have infrequent hot fire in the high country in the past, now we have fire on endless repeat. The forests get younger as we get older, yet this new reality of dead trees and thick regrowth becomes understood as being ‘normal’. Many people don’t recognise that what they see as they look out from a ski resort over burnt out hills is actually ecological collapse in real time.

Are we all just witnessing a deteriorating landscape and thinking it is ‘normal’ because we don’t have a memory of what was here before?

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‘Fire regimes around Australia shifted abruptly 20 years ago’

Widespread wildfires in early 2016 caused devastating damage across large areas of the Tasmanian World Heritage Area, including significant sections of vegetation which is not fire adapted, such as Pencil Pine forests.

At the time, and in follow up investigations, it became clear that increased fire risk due to climate change posed an existential threat to these vegetation types. Then additional research confirmed that there was a trend towards more extreme fire seasons. Some researchers suggested that we reached a ‘tipping point’ sometime around the year 2000 and that, since then, there has been an increase in the number of lightning-caused fires and an increase in the average size of the fires, “resulting in a marked increase in the area burnt”.

On the mainland, fires increased significantly from about the same time. There were major fires in the Victorian high country in 1998, 2002/3, 2006/7, 2013 and 2019/20. Fires are becoming more common and more intense across the Alps.

It turns out that something similar was happening around the country. Fire regimes around Australia shifted abruptly 20 years ago.

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Is this the summer you do the AAWT?

Its walking season. And people are getting out, despite some crazy weather. A friend has just left on the Australian Alps Walking Track (AAWT). Another is about to leave. A work mate is planning to walk it in autumn.  And I am seeing many posts from people who were out on the track during recent epic snowfalls. It seems like our premier long distance trail is getting a lot of love at present.

Many of the usual issues will remain, like sections that are hard to find in the hill and valley country in the south (although in early 2023, the section of the AAWT from Mt Sunday to Low Saddle, which has been problematic for walkers for some time has now been cleared by volunteers from Bushwalking Victoria). In the northern end, the heavy rains are making it hard to do river crossings in places like the Murrumbidgee and Eucumbene rivers and Morass Creek. Fire regrowth in some areas is also making for some hard navigation. And the road from Mt Beauty to Falls Creek will be closed through summer, making support and food drops on the Bogong High Plains slightly more problematic (you can reach the High Plains via Omeo). Because of heavy rains, there are many local road closures in the mountains.

But, as always it is a great adventure.

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“Climate change is occurring 10 times faster than at any time in past 65 million years”

We recently posted an item outlining the fact that the combined climate pledges of 193 Parties under the Paris Agreement could put the world on track for around 2.5 degrees Celsius of warming by the end of the century. That would mean the end of winters as we know them.

There is a range of research shows that warming is happening even faster than previously understood.

“The planet is undergoing one of the largest changes in climate since the dinosaurs went extinct. But what might be even more troubling for humans, plants and animals is the speed of the change. In new research, Stanford climate scientists warn that the likely rate of change over the next century will be at least 10 times quicker than any climate shift in the past 65 million years”.

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Acknowledging the pioneers who protected the Alps

Over the past two years, we have produced two printed versions of the Mountain Journal. The first one focused on Where are we? (Visions from First Nations people about their aspirations for the Alps). The second focused on Giving back to the mountains (profiles on some of the many people doing good things in the mountains, like campaigning, guiding, ski patrolling and restoration work and so on).

The third issue (due out around New Year) will look at the people who came before us and who built our knowledge of the value of the high country, influenced our views of the mountains, and worked to have them protected.

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CHASING the MOUNTAIN LIGHT: A Life Photographing Wild Places

All landscapes have appeal. Some are easier to love than others. Many Australians love the beach and coastlines. Some love the desert, or wetlands, rainforests or the tall Ash forests. Some people have more obscure tastes – mangroves or mulga or gibber plains. But many of us love the mountains. And some of us express this love through writing, film, poetry, photography or other forms of communication. A new book called Chasing the Mountain Light delves deep into love of the mountains through the medium of images and writing.

The subititle of the book explains it perfectly: ‘A life photographing wild places’. The work of David Neilson, it is a glorious coffee table sized book featuring wonderful black and white images from south western lutruwita/ Tasmania, Patagonia, Karakoram and the Alps of Australia, New Zealand and Europe and other ranges such as the Andes.

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