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Mountain Journal magazine #5 now available

The Mountain Journal magazine is now in its 5th year of production. We print 1,000 copies and distribute it for free through mountain and valley towns between Melbourne and Canberra during autumn each year. This year we had a guest editor – Anna Langford, who has produced an absolutely gorgeous magazine with the assistance of designer Tess Sellar and beautiful images from a range of people including Matt Tomkins.

The theme delves into what is happening to Winter. As Anna says in her introduction: “Long, deep winters are fast becoming folk tales of the past. But there is still so much to love, and so much we can do to act. To talk about our alpine winters is to lament what we’ve lost, celebrate
what we still have, record it for collective memory, and impel each other to step up and take action“.

Continue reading “Mountain Journal magazine #5 now available” →

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Alpine Odyssey Aotearoa to cross NZ from north to south

Many backcountry enthusiasts will be familiar with Huw Kingston. Most recently he has released and toured the film Alpine Odyssey, which covers his winter crossing of the Australian Alps during 2022, which was unusual because he visited all of the ski resorts along the way.

Now he is planning a winter crossing of Aotearoa New Zealand. Traveling from the tip of the North Island to the bottom of the South, he and his friend Laurence Mote plan to ski, cycle, walk and sail the full length of both islands. They also intend to ski at all 24 ski fields in the country. They start their journey on 25 June.

You can read more below.

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We know how this story goes. But we could decide to change the ending.

We know that climate change is reducing the overall amount of snow we receive in Australia. The snow pack has been in decline since at least 1957. We also know that the loss of snow is being felt especially at lower elevations.

We also know that as snow pack dwindles and the snow line climbs up the mountains that we have already lost a number of previous centres of snow culture – like at Mt Buffalo where there used to be a small resort with ski runs, and people would ice skate on Lake Catani, while the famous Buffalo chalet provided great holidays in the snow in a beautiful setting. The old ski lifts at Buffalo have now been dismantled.

In the 1920s and 1930s people could ice skate on the lakes in Mt Field national park in lutruwita/ Tasmania, including at the famous Twilight Tarn and there was even a small outdoors ice rink on the summit of kunanyi/ Mt Wellington, above Hobart.

In the early 1900s, a popular ice-skating venue at the time, Pine Lake on the Central Plateau in Tasmania was chosen for the intention of establishing Tasmania as “the Switzerland of Australia” by establishing a “Ice yachting” venue (where specially built yachts could skim across the top of the frozen lake). Source.

The small resorts at Mt Mawson (Mt Field national park) and at Ben Lomond in the north east of the state really struggle to get enough snow cover to justify opening the ski tows.

Spring skiing in the mountains of lutruwita/ Tasmania was a thing up until the 1990s. Now good snow pack in the spring months is a rarity that must be grabbed if you have the chance.

Kiandra in the Snowy Mountains was the birthplace of skiing in Australia (as pointed out in this recent podcast from Protect Our Winters). Australia’s first T-bar lift had been installed on Township Hill near Kiandra in 1957. Now the valleys and hills around the old settlement rarely hold skiable snow for long.

Continue reading “We know how this story goes. But we could decide to change the ending.” →

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What does the ‘State of the Climate’ report mean for mountain environments?

The biennial State of the Climate Report, which is produced by the CSIRO and BOM has now been released. The report draws on the latest national and international climate research, monitoring, science and projection information to describe changes and long-term trends in Australia’s climate.

Among a vast amount of information, there are some clear details relevant to mountain environments.

Continue reading “What does the ‘State of the Climate’ report mean for mountain environments?” →

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Managing the grief

For the last few years, Friends of the Earth has been hosting guided walks in the high country to show people areas at risk from logging. These have included Mt Stirling, the upper Little Dargo River, and the stronghold of older snow gums that exists at Mt Wills and which would have been put at risk by logging that had been planned for Alpine Ash forests on the mountain.

With the government announcing an end to logging on public lands in the east of the state in early 2024, we shifted the focus of our walks onto snow gum woodlands, which are increasingly being impacted by climate change driven fire regimes and dieback caused by a native beetle.

In early 2024 we led a walk to visit what we called the ‘ghost forests’ of the high ridge between the Tawonga huts and Mt Fainter on the north western edge of the Bogong High Plains.

Continue reading “Managing the grief” →

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Letter home from the Arctic: when will we miss winter?

A reflection from Anna Langford, currently in the Arctic Circle region of Norway.

 

People keep asking me why I have come to spend three months in the Arctic Circle. They need a beat of stunned silence to comprehend my answer, ‘to be cold’.

I’m well-practiced at riding out the response – the loss of words, usually followed by a guffaw of laughter and a light-hearted insult. And sometimes a nervous flicker in the eyes, as though I’ve just given myself away as a ghoulish creature who flinches at the touch of sunlight.

I have been travelling since January, when I chose to bail on an Australian summer in favour of an English winter. ‘What are you doing here?!’ people would splutter, upon finding out where I had come from. Had I accidentally stumbled into Melbourne airport and onto a flight to London while on my way to the beach?

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Winter 2024 – the washup

If you were in the Victorian mountains during that amazing storm that passed through in the third week of July, you will have experienced winter at its best. In the Victorian backcountry we had already lost much of the base and the fresh snow was unconsolidated, but it didn’t really matter because there was so much of it. That wonderful and particular sound of fresh dry powder creaking underfoot as you weave through the trees on the uphill and that weightlessness as you head back down truly is magic (it always reminds me of that opening scene in the Valhalla film from Sweetgrass – When you’ve seen the season’s first great snow through the eyes of a child—you’ve known true happiness).

Then the blow drier was turned on, and we all know what happened next. Despite the amazing efforts of the resort groomers, the resorts started to close – the lower elevation ones like Mt Selwyn went first (consistent with what we expect from climate change). As of September 8 there is still cover in the Main Range and a few lifts are still going in places like Falls Creek. But basically the season is done – a whole month early.

This is obviously a huge blow for the businesses who are on their second short winter and everyone who was reliant on a full winter working in a resort or valley town. And, of course, it’s a drag for everyone who just wants to go skiing or riding.

Continue reading “Winter 2024 – the washup” →

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The first Snow Gum Summit

Announcement of conference: February 14 – 16, 2025

Snow Gums (Eucalyptus pauciflora) are the classic tree of the Australian High Country. They are profoundly different to the trees found in mountain areas in other parts of the world, and give a uniquely Australian sense to our high country. However, they are facing a double threat to their survival: from fire and dieback.

We are hosting a ‘snow gum summit’ which will bring together land managers and academics and anyone interested in the future of this iconic species to explore what needs to be done to ensure the survival of snow gum woodlands, and put the issue firmly on the state governments agenda.

We will be inviting First Nations people, local and state wide environmental organisations, local communities and businesses, groups active in outdoors recreation, and enthusiasts of high-elevation, forest ecosystems.  There will be presentations, workshops and field trips.

This event will happen at Dinner Plain, on GunaiKurnai Country in north eastern Victoria.

Continue reading “The first Snow Gum Summit” →

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The Bayindeen fire and Snow Gum forests at Mt Cole

Snow gums (generally E. pauciflora ssp. Pauciflora) are the iconic tree of the Australian high country. While they are best known for their dominance of higher elevation areas in north eastern Victoria and the Snowy Mountains of southern NSW, it grows in woodland along the ranges and tablelands, in cold sites above 700 metres, in a long stretch from the far south-east of Queensland, through New South Wales, the Australian Capital Territory, and Victoria, to near Mount Gambier in South Australia and Tasmania.

Snow gums also exist as isolated pockets well away from the higher mountains. For instance there are 53 known remnant Snow Gum sites within a 40 kilometre radius of Ballarat, Victoria. A  large proportion of remnant vegetation in the area occurs as small patches or isolated paddock trees, often on private land.

However there are also some important Snow Gum forests on public land in central and western Victoria. A well known example is on the upper slopes around Mt Macedon. Although these forests were impacted by the 1983 Ash Wednesday fires, the Mount Macedon Snow Gum population have been assessed as being in relatively good health (despite a recent proposal to clear some sections of the forest around the Memorial Cross at Mt Macedon)..

There is also a really important community of Snow Gums growing across the higher hills of the Mt Cole state forest.

Continue reading “The Bayindeen fire and Snow Gum forests at Mt Cole” →

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Protect Our Winters report: Our Changing Snowscapes

We have known for years that climate change is reducing the overall amount of snow we receive in Australia. The snow pack has been in decline since at least 1957. We also know that the loss of snow is being felt especially at lower elevations and will have enormous impacts on the local economies that have developed around the mountains.

Today Protect Our Winters (POW) have released a comprehensive update on the threats posed by climate change – to snow pack, the mountain environment and animals who rely on a thriving ecosystem, and downstream rivers, and also the impacts on the local economies that rely on good snowfalls.

Continue reading “Protect Our Winters report: Our Changing Snowscapes” →

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Celebrating the survivors

Across the mountains of south eastern Australia, climate change is already driving profound change. In many places in the high country, snow gum forests are facing a double threat: dieback, caused by a native beetle is killing individual trees, and climate change driven fire regimes are devastating vast areas of forest.

Recent research by John Morgan, Michael Shackleton and Zac Walker from the Research Centre for Applied Alpine Ecology at La Trobe University highlights that ‘Long-unburnt snow gum forests (now) comprise less than 1% of snow gum forests in the Victorian Alps’.

We know that snow gums can survive fire. We also know that across the Alps snow gum woodlands are starting to collapse from too frequent fire. That’s why we have to appreciate and protect the old forests that remain.

Continue reading “Celebrating the survivors” →

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Mountain Icons: the majesty of Mt Buffalo

Mountain Journal has slowly been compiling a collection of stories of ‘mountain icons’. In this contribution, Anna Langford reflects on her long connection to the Buffalo plateau.

How instinctively we reach for the superlatives – the oldest, fastest, biggest – when we want to distinguish something above its peers.

Mount Buffalo has no such claims on its fellow mountains: it is not the tallest, steepest, or remotest… and say nothing of its dismal snowpack that frays year by year.

There is only one superlative I insist on assigning it. To me, Buffalo has always been the grandest of our peaks.

Continue reading “Mountain Icons: the majesty of Mt Buffalo” →

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