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Nature walks at the VIC backcountry festival

As we get close to the annual Victorian Backcountry Festival, there are still spaces available in a number of the tours and workshops.

There will also be some low key nature immersion tours, which are being offered by Protect Our Winters (POW) and Friends of the Earth (FoE).

These tours are free, but everyone attending the festival should purchase a weekend pass (which costs $31.25).

This pass is valid for the whole festival weekend. It gives you access to festival activities including the Friday Night Launch Party, the Saturday and Sunday evening Speakers Program, film screenings and the Avalanche Rescue Competition.

Continue reading “Nature walks at the VIC backcountry festival” →

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VIC backcountry festival 2024

The first Victorian backcountry festival was held at Falls Creek in 2018. It is now a significant annual community event, based at Mt Hotham – and touring the surrounding mountains – and draws several hundred people each year.

The 2024 festival will happen over the last weekend of August (three days from August 30 until September 1). There is a new convenor this year, Ryan Miles, and a larger organising team. It is a 100% volunteer effort, by the community and for the community.

While we are still working out the details, and the format will be slightly different this year, it will be along the same lines as previous years: built around a great program of tours, there will be workshops and events happening on each night – Friday to Sunday – including great speakers and films.

Keep an eye on the website for updates and announcements on ticket sales and the touring program.

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Navigating Your Way in the Mountains

Recently in a post about navigation on Mountain Journal I asked if, in the electronic era, there was still a role for traditional tools such as the paper map and compass.

In this post Kelly Van Den Berg, who trains people in navigation, offers her thoughts.

Traditional navigation skills in the mountains? Do we actually need this skill?

In an age of robust and accurate electronic devices, where do the traditional map and compass fit in ?

Up until a few years ago, all of my navigation experience was with a map and compass. I was thrust screaming into the electronic era after taking some work as a Backcountry guide. I quickly had to launch myself into understanding what these newfangled electronic things were all about as I pretended to understand how to download GPX files into programs I’d never heard of late at night in the days leading up to tours.

This process certainly made me realised how out of touch I was, but it helped me to realise something way more useful …how much my traditional skills overlapped and complemented the modern adaptations and that the dark arts were far from obsolete.

Continue reading “Navigating Your Way in the Mountains” →

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Let’s talk about maps

As I walk up the trails at Mt Stirling towards the summit, I always enjoy this sign. As more and more people get into the high country on foot or ski or bike, its good to remind them that it is another place to the lowlands and forested country, and things can get nasty very quickly. I also reflect that, with numbered sign posts and maps on pretty much every intersection on the mountain, it is almost impossible to get lost (yes, I know, people still manage to do it).

And I love the ‘map and compass’ note. It feels almost quaint and old worldly. And it makes me think about how our ways of navigating have changed so profoundly in the space of a few decades.

Continue reading “Let’s talk about maps” →

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Getting ready for winter

Yes, last winter was a bit ordinary. But to be a skier or rider in Australia is to be an eternal optimist (did you see the story this week that hundreds of the world’s leading climate scientists expect global temperatures to rise to at least 2.5C above preindustrial levels this century?) so we have to remain hopeful.

Its May. Its getting cool. Its only a few weeks til the start of the ’snow season’ (yes, it is just a capitalist construct). But its still very exciting that winter is getting close.

Here is the beginning of a list of backcountry events and human powered adventure in the high country. Fingers crossed for a good winter.

Continue reading “Getting ready for winter” →

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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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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 is the fourth print edition, and the magazine is being distributed at present.

You can also enjoy this PDF of the magazine MJ4.

Continue reading “Mountain Journal magazine #4 now online” →

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2024 Backcountry film festival Melbourne screening – April 22

The annual Backcountry Film Festival is put together by the Winter Wildlands Alliance (WWA), screens around the world, and is hosted locally by Friends of the Earth and RMIT Outdoors Club.

The 2024 season will screen in Naarm/ Melbourne on Monday April 22.

It will be screening a collection of short documentaries and ski movies about the pursuit of adventure in the mountains, artistic vision, friendship, and how the snowsports community is adapting to a changing environment.

Continue reading “2024 Backcountry film festival Melbourne screening – April 22” →

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‘Lets be really intentional about the stories we choose to perpetuate within our sport’

Connor Ryan is a Hunkpapa Lakota skier based in Colorado. Prominent for his work with Natives Outdoors and his film Spirit of the Peaks (and more recently his series called the New Radical), he is a strong native voice in what is still largely a community dominated by Anglo people.

Recently while speaking at a conference organised by the Winter Wildlands Alliance he was asked for his thoughts about how environmental advocates can become better story tellers.

His response really resonated with me.

Continue reading “‘Lets be really intentional about the stories we choose to perpetuate within our sport’” →

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2024 Backcountry film festival lineup announced

The 19th Annual Backcountry Film Festival is put together by the Winter Wildlands Alliance (WWA). It will be screening a collage of short documentaries and ski movies about the pursuit of objectives and ideals in the mountains, artistic vision, friendship, and how the snowsports community is adapting to a changing environment.

We are yet to set the date for the 2024 festival: it will happen in Melbourne in late April or early May.

We normally start with some speakers from local backcountry groups and feature a couple of short locally made backcountry films, then get into the WWA program.

Continue reading “2024 Backcountry film festival lineup announced” →

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Killer trees of the high country

A year or so ago I was on a fireground, ‘mopping up’ a fire that had run up a hill through a scrubby forest of Box and Stringybark. There were a surprising number of nasty looking trees with hanging branches or burnt out crowns, so we were working slowly and carefully, to stay out of danger. One of the others, an older guy with decades of firefighting experience told me of a day years ago when he was fighting a fire in Ash country up in the Central Highlands. He turned around at one point to find his mate dead on the ground. A branch from an Ash tree (not sure if it was Alpine or Mountain Ash) had hit the man in his neck at the top of his spine and killed him instantly.

We all know that Alpine Ash love to throw small branches that fall almost as spears and end up stuck in the ground. I was thinking of this story as I wandered through an Alpine Ash forest the other day after a big stormy front had come through. All around there were ‘spears’ sticking up from the ground. I was glad I was safely camped in a clearing when that wind was blowing.

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Backcountry film festival – Melbourne, 2024

Date claimer / Call out for local films

Each year the Backcountry film festival (BCFF) celebrates the connection between humans and wild winters. It is a ‘collage of human-powered stories and backcountry-inspired experiences. Backcountry Film Festival ignites wild conversations and inspires action to communities that celebrate the present while looking towards the future’.

For more than 10 years, Friends of the Earth has held the BCFF in Melbourne before winter. The 19th Annual Backcountry Film Festival is screening documentaries and ski movies about athletic pursuit in the mountains, artistic vision, friendship, and how the snowsports community is adapting to a changing environment.

In 2024 we will again co-host the Melbourne screening with the RMIT Outdoors Club. We are looking at dates in late April or early May.

We are looking for some short Australian made backcountry films to be included as part of the evening. Yes, 2023 was grim. But if you have a film you would like to see screened at the festival before an enthusiastic audience, please get in touch: cam.walker@foe.org.au

Continue reading “Backcountry film festival – Melbourne, 2024” →

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