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Backcountry film festival

UPDATE: 2012 shows – Melbourne in April

For details on the 2012 season please check here.

We will also be showing the festival at Dinner Plain in August. Stay tuned for details.

Showing in Melbourne, April 2011

Many thanks to everyone who showed up. We will need a bigger venue next time ...

The Winter Wildlands Alliance created the Backcountry Film Festival in 2005 to help grassroots and professional filmmakers to show audiences their love of the winter outdoors. Since then, the annual festival has been shown in more than 30 towns and cities, and raised thousands of dollars to help efforts to preserve our winter environment.

The 2011 film festival is showing in Australia.

This tuesday, April 12

Films start at 8 pm. Please feel free to arrive earlier to grab a drink.

At 303 (303 High street, Northcote, Melbourne), tram stop #32 on the #86 tram. Its just next door to the Northcote Social Club.

303 is a licensed bar.

Entry by donation. All funds raised will support Protect Our Winters.

You can watch the trailer here.

Protect Our Winters is the environmental centre point of the winter sports community, united towards a common goal of reducing climate change’s effects on our sport and local mountain communities.

We believe that to really effect things, consumer behaviour needs to change and that the power of an actively participating and united community can have a direct influence on climate change, now and for generations behind us.

This year’s festival features:

Best of the Festival: Teton Gravity Research’s festival cut of “Deeper” follows legendary snowboarder Jeremy Jones and other top riders as they forsake helicopters, snowmobiles and lifts to venture deep into untouched terrain under their own power.

Best Short Film: “Desert River” from Sweetgrass Productions, is a beautiful ski adventure into Alaska.

Best Environmental Film: “Whitebark Warrior” from TreeFight and Snaz Media, chronicles the decline of thousand-year old whitebark pines due to climate change and efforts underway to save these iconic high alpine trees.

Other Films Include:

  • Australis, an Antarctic ski odyssey
  • TELEvision (check here for a TELEvision trailer to give you a sense of whats on offer) and
  • Cross Country Snowboarding

For extra information, please check the festival website.

For details on POW Australia, please contact Cam: cam.walker@foe.org.au

There will be other Australian screenings of the festival:

  • at Mt Buller on 16th July.
  • Jindabyne, dates TBC.

Snow Monkey has offered a 10% discount card to each person that attends the night.

They have shops in Collingwood and Mt Hotham.

Josh Dirkson, Alaska, from the film Deeper. Image: Teton Gravity Research.
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The Ducane traverse

As summer kicks in, its tempting to get happily distracted by long gone snow and cold. I have been struggling to write content these last few weeks, so am ‘recycling’ a piece that hasn’t appeared on the front page yet: a summary of the Ducane traverse, in the southern end of the Cradle Mountain Lake St Clair National Park.

climbing past Falling Mountain

Tasmania has notoriously un-predictable winter conditions, but the Ducane can provide  spectacular skiing when it’s in condition, on steep slopes and in gullies.

The ‘traverse’ is generally seen as being the walk/ snowshoe from Ducane Gap, on the Overland Track, over Castle Crag and Mt Massif, into Big Gun Pass, and then exiting onto the Ducane Range proper. From here you head out past the Pool of Memories and down to the head of Pine Valley via the Geryon climbers camp, or through the Labyrinth to the Parthenon track that takes you to Pine Valley hut.

Its awesome terrain at any time, especially winter, which is when these images and report are from. Enjoy.

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the Gould circuit

Mt Gould saddle

Another great and mostly off-track trip in the Cradle Mountain National Park in  Central West Tassie is the ‘Gould circuit’. It’s a nice three day trip to and from Narcissus hut at the northern end of Lake St Clair. If you continue north into the Labyrinth or west onto the Guardians you can easily stretch it into a longer journey (one option is to keep going over the Ducane Range and Mt Massif, to exit onto the Overland track at Ducane Gap).

The following are some slightly vague reflections on the Circuit.

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winter on its way

Woo hoo. With another good dusting across the Alps in the last week, thoughts turn to the big questions: when will we get that first big dump? What trips am I going to do? Do I need any new gear?

Looking across the Bogong High Plains towards the east face of Feathertop, VIC

A few links that might help the pre season prep:

gear. The Green and sustainable gear site brings together information and listings on green and ethical outdoor gear, including whatever is still produced locally;

our carbon footprint. Here in Australia, a trip to the snow usually means a lot of hours sitting in a car. But most resorts are well serviced by buses. Perhaps think of doing at least one trip a year by bus, as a practical way of reducing your impact. The Keep Winter Cool site has a carbon calculator so you can measure – and hopefully – reduce the impacts of your next car-based trip

sunscreen. Up high, just that bit closer to the sun, we need our sunblock. But what about the hidden nasties? Check here for a guide to nano free sunscreens.

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Mountain Church

As we wait for winter snow, I stumbled on this short story from the Mountain Gazette by D. Morgan Miller that sums up much of the appeal of getting out in the backcountry:

“Ritual.

Image: Mountain Gazette

Ritual is what I need.

Sitting here in this beloved mountain temple, on my nifty little ski bench in the back of the car, the dressing ritual in this special place has every exhalation feeling lighter and more peaceful. My spirit has already started climbing out of the cellar. Donning my pack, boots and skis, I’m dressing my body to go sacrifice to the mountains for just a short while”.

You can find the story here.

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