Search

Mountain Journal

Environment, news, culture from the Australian Alps

Open Search
Tag

sense of place

Can you help us to print and distribute mountain journal mag 2026?

We produce Mountain journal magazine once a year, and distribute 1,000 copies for free in breweries, cafes, gear shops, and info centres in valley towns and resorts between Melbourne and Canberra, plus in mountain huts across the high country. It is intended for outdoors people who love the mountains. The magazine is also produced as a PDF and freely available on the website (here).

We now have a theme for the 2026 edition: managing change in the mountains, which will aim to delve into the complex issues of new people and groups who are now visiting the mountains, and how we can welcome these groups while ensuring everyone has a good and safe time in the hills.

Now we need to find the funds to make it happen.

Continue reading “Can you help us to print and distribute mountain journal mag 2026?” →

0

Oregon ash. Whitebark Pine. Ponderosa pine. The Cider Gum. All heading in the same direction.

One of the regular themes here at Mountain Journal is the threats posed to mountain environments by climate change (also called global heating). Climate change is already impacting all ecosystems in the mountains, and we have been seeing declining snow pack since at least 1957. Longer droughts, more intense fires, warmer temperatures, species moving to higher elevations. The impacts are quantifiable and incredibly depressing.

While this information is readily available, there is a strange denial that exists in large parts of the outdoors and mountain communities and certainly in the snow industry. And many others, who are willing to acknowledge what is happening, seem unwilling to commit either time or money to reduce the impacts of climate change. When we have a normal(ish) sort of winter as we experienced in 2025, the snow and mainstream media herald it as a ‘bumper’ winter.

Continue reading “Oregon ash. Whitebark Pine. Ponderosa pine. The Cider Gum. All heading in the same direction.” →

0

Letting go of the wilderness. Holding on to the Wild

As the process of a Treaty between First Peoples and the state of Victoria gets closer to agreement, I keep wondering about what it will all mean for the lands that we love. With an end to native forest logging, there has been two largely parallel processes underway. On the one hand, environmentalists have been pursuing their vision of larger national parks. On the other hand, First Nations people are asserting their rights to manage their traditional Country.

As a society, we really haven’t grappled with the changes in power that is currently underway in Victoria. These are a few of the complex thoughts and feelings that I have been sitting with in recent months.

Continue reading “Letting go of the wilderness. Holding on to the Wild” →

0

Mountain Journal magazine #5 – call-out for contributions

It’s that time of year. We are starting to get the annual magazine started. MJ magazine is an annual magazine that is distributed for free in mountain and valley towns between Melbourne and Canberra. And this year we have a guest editor: Anna Langford.

Continue reading “Mountain Journal magazine #5 – call-out for contributions” →

0

International Mountain Day 2024

International Mountain Day is marked each year on December 11. This is one of those globally recognised events that often have an annual theme, and according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN (FAO), this year it is “Mountain solutions for a sustainable future – innovation, adaptation and youth”.

Continue reading “International Mountain Day 2024” →

0

Celebrating International Mountain Day – in the lowlands

International Mountain Day is marked each year on December 11. This is one of those globally recognised events that often have an annual theme, and according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN (FAO), this year it is “Mountain solutions for a sustainable future – innovation, adaptation and youth”.

Out in central and northern Victoria, on the traditional lands of the Dja Dja Wurrung people, there are two sets of celebrations that will happen around the global day. The Dja Dja Wurrung are organising an event at Lalgambuk (Mt Franklin) on the 11th, and the folks from the Great Dividing Trail Network (who look after the trail that runs from Ballarat to Bendigo) are hosting a series of walks to different mountains between the 6th and 10th of December.

Continue reading “Celebrating International Mountain Day – in the lowlands” →

0

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?

Continue reading “Letter home from the Arctic: when will we miss winter?” →

0

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” →

1

The world’s most charismatic tree (*)

If you visit this website, you will probably have noticed that I have a bit of an obsession with Snow Gums.

Snow Gums (Eucalyptus pauciflora) are the classic tree of the higher mountains of south eastern Australia. Interspaced with Alpine Ash at the lower end of their distribution, much of the forests and woodlands at higher levels across the Alps are dominated by this wonderful tree. 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. I am always amazed by the remarkable diversity in form that is possible within a single species. From grand tall elders in sheltered zones to wind pruned Bonsai sized trees on the treeline, the Snow Gum has a dazzling diversity of forms.

Continue reading “The world’s most charismatic tree (*)” →

0

‘Mountain Redneck magazine’

This year’s Mountain journal magazine is now starting to pop up in various places around the high country. Our ‘distribution strategy’ (such as it is) mostly revolves around me chucking a few magazines in my pack or car as I wander around the Alps. So its all pretty haphazard, and reflects where I get to, which means they don’t get placed right across the Alps. But the 2024 edition is now out there, in spots as random as Cope hut, Moscow Villa and Bluff Spur hut on Mt Stirling.

That means the feedback starts. Its always great to get a message from someone who has found one in a hut. The most common spot is Mt Wills, and mostly from people who are walking the Australian Alps Walking Track (AAWT). The next most common spot is Derrick hut (maybe because I’m out there often, so its easy to keep stocked up).

Continue reading “‘Mountain Redneck magazine’” →

0

‘Giles’, Mt Bogong, and Cleve Cole Memorial Hut

We love receiving feedback on the magazine. Lately there have been quite a few emails come in from people who have spotted copies of the magazine in places as scattered in Derrick Hut and a cafe in Thredbo. But this is the first time the feedback was a mountain poem.

Stephen Whiteside has provided this one as part of his efforts to help create a body of bush verse that relates to the snow country.

Continue reading “‘Giles’, Mt Bogong, and Cleve Cole Memorial Hut” →

0

Skiing in the Pyrocene (*)

It was probably a year ago that I saw this photo in Powder magazine. It broke my heart to think that an image of a skier making lines through burnt forest is now just a regular thing in the times that we live in.

The other day I was out pottering around, aiming to ski to Mt Tabletop near Mt Hotham, taking advantage of the excellent snow base at present. I skied out along JB Plain and cut into the trees to the edge of the 2020 fire, then decided to follow the open terrain down on the south side of the escarpment, onto a steepening slope that ended where the Alpine Ash started to dominate. Its early August but it felt like spring: forgiving granular corn, south facing slopes, mellow turns. Doing wide loops through the dead trees, looking out to the Dargo High Plains, I felt at home in these mountains that I love. This used to be thick regrowth forest and you never would have thought of skiing here. But now its open, and with a good cover, its enjoyable moderate terrain. The Ash are dead, as are a lot of the Snow Gums.

Continue reading “Skiing in the Pyrocene (*)” →

0

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑