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Find Your Line

Few people are aware that backcountry Australia hides some big-mountain slopes, even less are willing to journey there for it. Yet the western slopes of the Snowy Mountains has some grand terrain for backcountry skiing and boarding.

Season 2014 delivers conditions of a decade for one splitboarder.

We are delighted to be showing this 8 minute film by Nicolas Rivers during the backcountry film festival this year.

This thursday May 21, RMIT in Melbourne.

Full details on location and the nine other films available here.

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ski mountaineering courses

Main Range Backcountry is offering ski mountaineering courses on the Main Range in the Snowies.

They say:

The rope can be a valuable tool for ski touring, but without any training in its use, can be dangerous or even provide a false sense of security. This course is designed to teach you basic rope handling and movement on snow and ice with crampons and ice axes. If you have a small group, the day can be customised to your needs, whether you want to access and ski big lines, with a larger margin of safety or are looking at getting into mountaineering from hiking or climbing.

Continue reading “ski mountaineering courses” →

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Backcountry film festival 2015

Now in its 10th year the Winter Wildlands Alliance Backcountry Film Festival celebrates the human powered winter experience through film. The festival aims to entertain while helping to raise funds and awareness for Winter Wildlands and our like-minded partners.

The Backcountry Film Festival premieres in Boise, Idaho, and then travels to more than 100 locations worldwide.  Along the way, it will be viewed by more than 20,000 outdoor enthusiasts and raise more than $110,000 each year for local organisations working on advocacy, snow safety, outdoor education and Snow School programs.

Melbourne show

Thursday May 21, 2015

Cinema at RMIT. Building 80.

Level 1, Room 2, 445 Swanston Street.

Suggested donation: $8 conc & students/ $15 waged.

All proceeds go to the Friends of the Earth climate campaign.

Facebook page here.

The cinema is Room 80.01.02 (It can be hard to find, best bet is to enter off A’Beckett Street, just by the Oxford Scholar Hotel (map here). Building 80 is on Swanston, between Latrobe and Franklin street, opposite the main RMIT campus.

Feel free to meet at the Oxford Scholar for a drink from 6.30pm. Please aim to arrive at the Cinema around 7, we will start the films at 7.15pm.

The festival will also be shown during the 2015 Splitfest (splitboarding festival) being held in the Snowy Mountains, on friday August 22 in Jindabyne.

Please check here for a listing of the films being shown.

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Splitfest DownUnder 2015

The NSW Splitfest DownUnder will be held on weekend of the 21-23rd of August in the NSW main range.
Register here.

We will be holding the Friday night entertainment at the Banjo Paterson Inn Starting @ 6pm
1 Kosciuszko Road, Jindabyne, Snowy Mountains, New South Wales.

There will be all the usual trimmings, T-Shirts, give a ways, raffles and loads of fun. Some of the prize categories include worst DIY job, most inventive Splitboard design etc. etc.

An official list will be out soon so stay tuned!

You have the option to stay in Jindabyne, camp in the National Park or my favorite camp on the peaks.
There will be rental gear available to those who need it. Jump on board and meet some new touring partners, the more the merrier!

This is a free event, there are no guides so you must be able to make your own terrain decisions.

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World Telemark Day/ Splitboard Festival

Telemark Skier magazine, based in the US, is starting WORLD TELEMARK DAY.

They say:

“this inaugural event is a day for telemark skiers to get together and go telemark skiing. Wherever you might be around the world let’s gather at our local hills and drop a knee together!”

The Southern Hemisphere event will be on Saturday SEPTEMBER 5, 2015. Anyone interested in organising an event is welcome to do so: just post the details on the facebook page so other people can join you.

There will be a gathering at Mt Loch that day. We will meet in Mt Hotham resort in the morning, and ski to Mt Loch and Machinery Spur. Tele and AT skiers and splitboarders all welcome.

Some people will also be camping at JB Plain (between Mt Hotham and Dinner Plain) that weekend. You’d be welcome to join the camp. Just come fully prepared with food and gear for snow camping. There is a pub just a 2 km ski away if the need arises.

Splitfest DownUnder

And just a ‘date claimer’ for the 2015 Splitfest DownUnder festival.

It will be over the weekend of 21-23 August, in the Main Range of the Snowies.

Check the Splitfest website closer to the event for full details and to register.

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Is Backcountry the new Black?

In a recent post, I suggested that, in the last few years, I have seen more people getting out into the backcountry for skiing and boarding. I didn’t try to draw any conclusions about out-of-winter visitation, but it certainly seems to me that there is a new generation of backcountry skiers and boarders, and a growing number of snow shoers as well. These people are coming both from traditional resort users and also a more nature-enthusiast demographic as well.

I recently spotted some stats from the US based Outside magazine about avalanche risk, which seemed to underscore the trend that I see out on the slopes:

  • In the US, more people are getting out of resorts ‘than ever before’ (this includes skiers, boarders and snowshoers). The author of the article White Noise in the October 2014 issue of Outside, Christopher Solomon, suggest that ‘a tipping point has been reached, some say, and what was once a fringe subculture is now firmly mainstream’.
  • He puts this growth to a range of factors, including more resorts opening ‘sidecountry’ terrain, more focus on snowsports culture on getting out of the resort, more infrastructure – like guiding businesses – who can take inexperienced people out, and better equipment.
  • He notes that in the US, sales of backcountry gear has grown 85% over the past four winters.
  • He says that men in their 20s are the group that are making up the ‘largest demographic venturing into the backcountry’.

All of this is fairly consistent with what I see out on the slopes. And we have not come close to a peak as yet. I have lost track of the number of skiers, boarders, towies and other mountain enthusiasts I met this winter who have aspirations to get out of resort, but haven’t done it yet. The ‘collective consciousness’ of the snow sports community has shifted and more and more are looking beyond the tows. In light of this, Hotham resorts intention to investigate extending its lifted areas into prime sidecountry terrain seems doubly strange.

Most of the newer backcountry skiers and boarders I meet seem to be focused on getting out into steep terrain. But I also notice another crowd, who are enjoying ‘traditional’ XC skiing or snow shoeing. This group tends to be both younger and older than the ‘steeps freaks’.

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winter 2014

The winter that was. It started late. But, as they say, better late than never. And it’s almost over.

To quote snow forecaster Grasshopper, who writes for Mountain watch.

It’s been quite a season. You can say one thing for certain, it’s been a winter of extremes and the weather has kept us guessing. Possibly more so than in recent years, in my opinion anyway. We started, of course, with a very dry situation during early June. The official opening date of 7 June was once again, a tad optimistic, and around 12 June folks were getting a little panicky. Then POW. Snowmageddon hit, and nearly two metres of snow in a fortnight had the snow base sitting on around 130cm by early July.

That base saw us all the way through August and well into September in the higher country. And yes, there’s still lots of good turns to be found out there. Enjoy.

Here’s some images from my winter. Please feel free to send me your own for inclusion, or share them on the mountain journal facebook page.

Continue reading “winter 2014” →

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Australian backcountry film festival – Spring 2014

For the past four years, the backcountry film festival has been attracting good numbers of people, and has been showing in more locations across south eastern Australia.

It seems like it might be time to have our own festival – with films made in Australia.

At previous Melbourne shows, we have added a film about skiing and boarding on The Bluff (No Lift Lines Here), and this year saw OFF GRID, a new effort on Mt Bogong from SoO Airtime.

The plan is to hold an Australian backcountry film festival in late spring 2014 with only local content. There are some fantastic film makers out there, and we hope to be able to showcase some of these.

We are seeking expressions of interest from film makers who would like to submit films.

Any human and gravity powered backcountry adventure would be welcome: walking, skiing, boarding, MTBing, paddling, climbing, …

As this is an entirely volunteer effort, with no budget, we are not able to offer payment for showing the films.

Films can be in two length categories. We hope to show an hours worth of short films (3 to 7 minutes) then up to 2 longer films (30 – 40 minutes each).

At this point we are looking at doing a Melbourne showing, with the ability to offer the festival to other places once its packaged up. The aim is to do a low fuss mini film festival, so we’d appreciate getting the films in a format that allows us to put them onto a single dvd.

If you’re keen, please get in touch: cam.walker@foe.org.au

I would also love to hear from anyone keen to volunteer their skills to turn the individual films into a package and for help with logistics.

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The trek to Kidman’s Hut

This post comes from Adam West of Main Range Backcountry and was originally posted on the MRBC site.
 
With my car full of every piece of mountain gear I own, I was woken at 5.30am on Saturday morning @ my mate’s house in East Jindabyne to find him packing for a trip to the high country near Mt Jagungal. I too packed all my kit with enough food for two days and we headed off!

Two plans were proposed, Whites River Hut or Burrungubuggee Hut. We went for the Burrungubuggee option as it seemed like more of an adventure! Our main objective was to ride some virgin snow in a remote part of the KNP.

At 9.00am we parked the car at Island Bend Fire trail and started walking. Packed was everything, Food, Tent, Sleeping gear, Splitboards and even crampons! From last week’s tour to Leather barrel Creek, I was coming prepared this time. My pack was very heavy but I was sure we would be skining soon as we headed up.

Continue reading “The trek to Kidman’s Hut” →

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The perfect back country camp

I love this story. As a climber I have spent weeks at a time living in the camp at Arapiles in western VIC (The Pines is always an entertaining place). Lifer climbers (as opposed to weekenders) are great at dossing out and living cheap. From the stone hut in the car park above Buffalo Gorge, to roadside camps in the Grampians, there are dozens of established, and well known, camping spots in the climbing world where you’ll often find other climbers.

I know of fewer such spots in the back country skiing world. Known campsites accessible by road where you can park yourself for a while without too much hassle.

Continue reading “The perfect back country camp” →

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Backcountry Awareness Presentation at Falls Creek

Falls Creek Ski Patrol is holding a Backcountry Awareness Presentation to be held this Saturday night the 9th of August at the Frying Pan Inn between 7 and 9pm.

Seats are limited so call Falls Creek Ski Patrol on 03 5758 1288 for bookings.

Mt Bogong from near Spion Kopje
Mt Bogong from near Spion Kopje

The night will consist of
·  a general presentation on backcountry awareness from both members of the Falls Creek & Squaw Valley Ski Patrol, including: How avalanches form, resort vs backcountry, personal equipment, weather / avalanche information sources when abroad, formal education resources for professionals and recreationists, avalanche transceiver use, probe line and search techniques, safe travel in avalanche terrain and snowpack analysis.

· the second part of evening will be a brief general summary of the recent Bogong Avalanche from Falls Creek Patrollers who assisted in search and recovery efforts – this will include a forensic review of the avalanche from a snow science and search and rescue perspective.

· After this there will be a couple of Backcountry short films – OFF GRID and Valhalla.

Also if anyone is interested in Field Workshops they should contact the Falls Creek Ski Patrol Base on for more information on 03 5758 1288.

· Donations for the night are going towards the set up of two Avalanche Rescue Hasty packs.

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Back Country culture. Changing of the guard?

As a teenager, my summer hiking and climbing quickly broadened into winter XC skiing. Wonderful years of skinny skis, dodgey boots, japara jackets and woollen pants.

A decade or so later, on a trip to the Main Range, I skied with some guys of similar skill level who were shredding slopes that I could barely get down. This was my introduction to the wonders of plastic boots and heavy gear. Like quite a few of my friends of similar age, I made the transition to fatter skis and started chasing steeps as well as enjoying my backcountry pottering. My equivalent of a mid-life sports car was a pair of Liberty skis with Axel bindings. I even bought a pair of skins. I never looked back, happily skinning up mountains after years of bagging my mates that had crossed over from the One True Religion of pattern based skis.

In the same way we have those subtle changes in our individual lives, these also play out on the larger level of the backcountry community. The last few years I have seen some interesting changes in back country (BC) culture. I suppose a lot my reflection is influenced by where I ski (mostly the Hotham/ Feathertop area, and Mt Stirling, with a couple of longer BC trips each year). So maybe its an observation that doesn’t ring true elsewhere. I haven’t skied out of Falls or Thredbo in about 3 years. And I certainly haven’t tried to cross reference it with any data.

Continue reading “Back Country culture. Changing of the guard?” →

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