The second Victorian backcountry festival will happen at Mt Hotham over the weekend of September 7 and 8. The program now has 28 sessions on offer. Most are free. They cover everything from cross country and tele skiing, split boarding, alpine touring, to avalanche safety, snow shoeing and fat tyre bikes.
For those who are wishing to experience one of the best alpine winter adventures in Australia, Alpine Walking Guides and the Mt Hotham Volunteer Ski Patrol are teaming up to offer small group, three day/two night ski/boarding tours between Falls Creek and Mt Hotham.
You will be carrying only a day pack, so you can get the most out of the skiing/boarding on offer. Alpine Walking Guides staff will be setting up and staffing camp sites and all your gear will be provided for warm and comfortable nights in the Alpine Wilderness. Food and wines from the North East will be prepared by quality chefs and cooks. No one goes hungry on these trips.
Continue reading “A fully supported winter trip from Falls Creek to Mt Hotham”
Mountain Sports Collective will be running a series of FREE Introduction to Advanced Backcountry sessions this season. These events are for participants who are eager to step beyond the patrol lines and learn the skills required to pursue extended ski touring (both skiing and split boarding). This is nominally everything you need to know to travel over a variety of alpine terrain (Skiing / Skinning and ALPINE Climbing) and overnight (the eDVANCED bit).
Lets Split is again hosting splitboarding tours this winter. There will be 3 days trips and 2 overnight trips in 2019, both in Victoria and NSW.
As part of the 2019 Victorian backcountry festival, we are hosting an extended speaker’s program. This will happen on the afternoon of Saturday September 7, upstairs at The General, Mt Hotham.
The program will run from midday to 4pm (and will be followed by a ski in outdoor bar from 4 – 6pm).
Check below for the program. We have a few more things coming, so times will vary slightly before we get to the final program.
With continued snowfalls expected this week, we’re looking as if we will have a proper (settled) base across higher ranges and hence an early start to the ‘season’ (yes, ‘ski season’ is just a capitalist construct).
You’re probably planning trips. Here are a few resources that might help:
Sunday September 8.
The Snow Bird, Hotham Central, 6.30 – 9pm.
Protect Our Winters (POW) is mobilising the outdoor sports community against climate change. It was founded by the legendary snowboarder Jeremy Jones and is active across North America and Europe. POW is now taking off in Australia.
Come along to this session to hear what’s happening, how you can support POW, and how to get involved. All welcome.
The Victorian Backcountry Festival will happen at Hotham, over the weekend of Sept 7 and 8. The program has just been released and is available here.
So far the program has 27 tours and workshops, from beginner to advanced, covering snow shoeing, splitboarding, alpine touring, telemark, and cross country. There will be skillshares in fat bikes, snow and avalanche safety, navigation, snow camping, rescue and a film making workshop.
The program:
- Start the weekend with a drink at the Snowline in Harrietville on Friday night
- Meet at The General early on sat for a briefing and tours (there are currently 19 tours and workshops on offer)
- Speaker’s program from midday at The General
- Then head to the outdoor bar (1 km ski/ skin in) and then kick on at Blizzard brewery in Dinner Plain
- Sunday is mostly longer tours (there are currently 8 tours planned for that day)
- The weekend finishes off with an evening brought to you by Protect Our Winters, featuring great speakers and 2 films, at The Bird
- Then Monday morning, the 3 day Feathertop camp out starts
- Alpine Access Australia is offering 2 day AST 1 avalanche courses before, during and after the festival.
Please remember to buy tickets for the weekend if you haven’t already (it’s $10 a person for the weekend)
The program for the 2nd Victorian backcountry festival will be released via the website next week.
People who have pre registered (you can register for $10 for the weekend here) will receive early notification of the program, and be able to sign up for tours, by the end of this week.
The program looks fantastic, with offerings from Hotham ski school, Traverse Hotham, LetsSplit, Melbourne Nordic Ski Club, Mountain Sports Collective, Bushwalking Search and Rescue, and many individuals.
The Mountain Pygmy–possum, Burramys parvus, is Australia’s only hibernating marsupial.
It is a small, mouse-sized nocturnal marsupial found in dense alpine rock screes and boulder fields, mainly in southern Victoria and around Mount Kosciuszko. The species is currently restricted to three isolated mountain regions: Mount Blue Cow in Kosciusko National Park in New South Wales, Mount Bogong and Mount Higginbotham/ Mt Loch in the Bogong High Plains in Victoria, and Mount Buller in Victoria.
The biggest threats to the remaining mountain pygmy possum populations include:
- habitat destruction and fragmentation,
- climate change,
- predation by feral cats and red foxes, and
- threats to the Bogong moth.
- The construction of ski resorts in the alpine regions in which the mountain pygmy possums live has been one of the greatest factors attributed to population decline.
Now, recent research underscores the fact that climate change may be posing a major threat to the viability of the species by decimating the moths which act as a major food source for the possum.
The Guardian reports that the Bogong Moth which migrate in their billions to alpine areas have crashed, which is putting extra pressure on the endangered mountain pygmy possum.
Continue reading “Climate change pushes the Mountain Pygmy Possum closer to extinction”
After months of speculation, it has been confirmed that Vail Resorts will acquire Mt Hotham and Falls Creek resorts. They bought Perisher resort in 2015.
It should be noted that ‘The acquisition, which is subject to certain regulatory approvals, is expected to close prior to the commencement of the Australian snow season in June 2019.’
The following media release comes from Mt Hotham resort:
Continue reading “Vail Resorts to Acquire Falls Creek and Hotham Ski Resorts”
Snow news website Snow Brains is reporting that Vail Resorts is planning to buy Victoria’s Mount Hotham and Falls Creek ski resorts for about $120 million to ‘expand its global offering of resorts’. The original story appeared in the Australian Financial Review.
According to Snow Brains, ‘The company sees the southern-hemisphere market as a way to tap the fast-growing market of Chinese skiers that has the potential to supercharge the global skiing industry’. Continue reading “Vail resorts to buy Hotham and Falls Creek?”
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