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Mountain Journal

Environment, news, culture from the Australian Alps

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International Mountain Day 2015

December 11 is designated by the UN as International Mountain Day.

Here’s a few facts from the UN:

“Covering around 22 percent of the earth’s land surface, mountains play a critical role in moving the world towards sustainable economic growth. They not only provide sustenance and wellbeing to 915 million mountain people around the world, representing 13 percent of global population, but indirectly benefit billions more living downstream”.

Where ever you are, I hope you’re out in the hills and having a great day. Please feel free to post some pics of your favourite mountains on our facebook page.

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Appreciating the Home Range

As a keen skier and walker I love to visit some of the higher ranges around the world. But having done lots of overseas trips I figure I’ve consumed well beyond a fair share of carbon, and tend to stick close to home for my adventures nowadays.

Continue reading “Appreciating the Home Range” →

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Vale Ern Mainka

Many people will know the work of Ern Mainka. His photography was hugely popular amongst nature enthusiasts, and I must have seen his images in hundreds of places over the years.

Apart from capturing our wild places so well, Ern played a significant role in raising awareness about the many threats posed to these places. Many of these landscapes are now protected, and Ern played a big part in many of these victories.

Continue reading “Vale Ern Mainka” →

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SnowSurf premieres in Australia

A new snowboarding and surfing film will have three premiere showings in Australia next week.

BIGFISH_01_lFilmed in the powder capital of Hokkaido, and focusing on the legendary Gentem Family, who have pioneered the ‘Snow Surf’ revolution epitomised by Gentemstick, this film features some of the very best Japanese and western Snow Surf riders.

Many of the key players in the movement are featured in SnowSurf, which was filmed over two years by Australian surf photographer, Shane Peel.

It features: Taro Tamai, Gerry Lopez, Ken Miyashita, Alex Yoder, Osamu “Om” Okada, Beau Young, Hideki Takeda, Hidehiko Wajima, Forrest Shearer, Makato Yamada, Par Dahlin, Timo Paarvala, Kazushi Yamauchi, Alex Lopez, Takuya Harayama, Tomomi Kuwahara, Toru Kuwahara, Toshiya Kasuga, Jarrkko Kauranen, Haruna Kito and the Gentemstick Family.

Patagonia, the major sponsor of the film, will be screening Snowsurf at their Sydney, Torquay and Byron Stores next week.

23rd September. Sydney store – 6pm (93 Bathurst St, Sydney)

25th September. Torquay store – 6pm (116 SurfCoast Hwy, Torquay)

26th September. Café Byron – 6pm (Shop1/ 58 Jonson st Byron Bay)

You can see the trailer here.

You can rsvp for the events on Facebook.

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In praise of huts 2

Mountain Journal has previously covered the issue of huts in the high country. As we said then:

“Huts in the mountains can be a vexed issue. Huts will tend to attract people and so tend to concentrate visitation within a larger area. As one example, most people who climb Mt Bogong tend to then turn towards Cleve Cole hut rather than head across to the Hooker Plateau. This tendency to influence visitation can be both good and bad.

They are part of the cultural history of the high country, and reflect major stages in the post colonisation era: cattle grazing, forestry, hydro, even fire watch towers and, more recently, huts built for recreational purposes. We also have a number of strange and random anomalies, ones that don’t really make sense: Craig’s hut near Mt Stirling as an example, which was built as a set for a film. There are, of course, those whose primary function is safety, such as Seaman’s hut near Mt Kosciusko, and huts that belong to clubs or even schools (Geelong Grammar on Mt Stirling)”.

With growing risk of wildfire, and many huts simply ageing and starting to fall apart, there is the chance that the overall number of huts will decline in coming years. Some are carefully looked after (the Kosciusko Huts Association lists the known caretakers of huts in the Snowy Mountains) but others are falling into disrepair.

I am more interested in indigenous history of the high country than huts, but I do appreciate the cultural value they hold for many people and the practical value of refuge huts.

Continue reading “In praise of huts 2” →

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Mountain music

Many years ago, I spent a slightly surreal weekend on the Howqua River in north east Victoria, where, as luck would have it, there was both a mountain cattleman’s gathering and a big enclave of environmental activists holding campaign workshops. Our camps squeezed closer together as the crowds packed in along Sheepyard Flat, and the initial distrust dissolved on the second or third night as we found some common cause in shared music around the fire.

It was one of those nights to remember. I recall that we got on famously, that many songs were traded, and various social lubricants were consumed. What I most remember was the music.

Music is one of those things that defines culture. Any authentic culture has its own music, songs that grow from who its people are and how they live, and also the place they live in. There’s nothing wrong with playing other people’s songs, but almost everything I heard that night was from somewhere else.

Read the story here.

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Mountain Journal turns five

It’s autumn, and so it must be time for the annual reflection on the Journal. Hard to believe its half a decade old!

Much of my motivation in starting MJ was simply to create a forum where I could appreciate our mountains and the people who are drawn to live and play amongst them. Early on, I did a few interviews with people I admire, and always love to run stories on people getting out amongst our wonderful mountain environment.

Over the past few years, the visitation has swung towards politics and backcountry adventure. This was the case in 2014 in terms of visitation. Sadly this is probably because there have been so many negative decisions taken by the Victorian Coalition government as it relates to the High Country. With the election of the ALP in November, the key threat to the Alpine national park – alpine grazing – has again been stopped.

While MJ was never really planned to be a ‘track notes’ type site, it has been interesting to see very strong visitation to the few trip reports that have been posted.

Check here for the full report.

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High Country Harvest

The High Country Harvest is a food based festival featuring 40 events across north east Victoria over 10 days.

15 – 24 May.

From the organisers:

You are invited to sip, sample and savour the bounty grown and created by chefs, artisan producers, craft brewers and winemakers at more than 40 culinary events over 10 glorious days. Most events sell out quickly, so bookings are essential.

You can find details on all the events here.

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Winter may be over, but the beauty and wonder of the mountains rolls on…

Some photos from Andrew Stanger, taken in late October “out the back on the Main Range of Kosciuszko National Park as the first flowers were unfurling to clear, sunny skies.”

Enjoy.

Continue reading “Winter may be over, but the beauty and wonder of the mountains rolls on…” →

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In Memoriam, Mike Moore

MG-cover-156-350hIn late summer 2010, I was stuck in the doldrums of endless heat and lack of rain, and winter seemed like it was light years away. I’d sought some shelter from the oven like air outdoors, and retreated to the coolest, darkest room in the house. I sought refuge in a cold beer and one of my favourite magazines, Mountain Gazette.

The Gazette was a lovely journal, described by its founder as being “generally about the mountains” that was produced in Colorado. It was often rambling and lateral, and seemed to cover everything from drinking and drugs to outdoor adventures, to politics in the ‘mountain states’, to musings on mountain culture. Leadville is not Miami (thankfully).

It got me thinking. I love the mountains here in south eastern Australia. And I love the culture that’s developing, growing from the thousands of people who are drawn to the hills to ski or board, to walk or paddle, to work and live. Not just the glossy consumer lifestyles of the rich and banal, but the real lives of people putting their roots down in a place that they love.

And so Mountain Journal was born. It never made it into print form. The logistics and costs were too great, and my time too limited. But it’s clearly filling some need for some people, and here we are four years later.

I just found out that Mike Moore, the founder of Mountain Gazette, passed away earlier this month. MG has long been a place of inspiration for me and I felt sad to hear of his passing. The Gazette itself transformed into an on-line journal several years ago and still publishes excellent writings and observations about mountain life. The following are some excerts from a reflection on Mike’s time as editor of the Gazette, by George Sibley.

Continue reading “In Memoriam, Mike Moore” →

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‘The Mountain’ book launch tonight

Five years in the making, The Mountain is the first photographer’s monograph on Mt Wellington in nearly 20 years.

Mark Clemens has created a superb photographic collection highlighting the uniqueness of this wild place on Hobart’s back doorstep with a foreword by award winning Tasmanian novelist, Heather Rose.

A photographic evocation of the Mountain’s own intrinsic nature: it lets the Mountain have its own voice and tell its own story.

The Mountain is Hardback $49.95, and is printed in Hobart to the highest specs.

Part of the proceeds go to the Tasmanian Land Conservancy.

Reservation essential to:   rsvp@fullersbookshop.com.au   or (03) 6234 3800

THE MOUNTAIN
BY MARK CLEMENS
BOOK LAUNCH

Follow The Mountain on facebook.com

WHEN

September 18, 2014 at 5:30pm – 6:30pm

WHERE

Fullers Bookshop
131 Collins St
Hobart, Tasmania 7000

 

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Australian backcountry film festival – Spring 2014

For the past four years, the backcountry film festival has been attracting good numbers of people, and has been showing in more locations across south eastern Australia.

It seems like it might be time to have our own festival – with films made in Australia.

At previous Melbourne shows, we have added a film about skiing and boarding on The Bluff (No Lift Lines Here), and this year saw OFF GRID, a new effort on Mt Bogong from SoO Airtime.

The plan is to hold an Australian backcountry film festival in late spring 2014 with only local content. There are some fantastic film makers out there, and we hope to be able to showcase some of these.

We are seeking expressions of interest from film makers who would like to submit films.

Any human and gravity powered backcountry adventure would be welcome: walking, skiing, boarding, MTBing, paddling, climbing, …

As this is an entirely volunteer effort, with no budget, we are not able to offer payment for showing the films.

Films can be in two length categories. We hope to show an hours worth of short films (3 to 7 minutes) then up to 2 longer films (30 – 40 minutes each).

At this point we are looking at doing a Melbourne showing, with the ability to offer the festival to other places once its packaged up. The aim is to do a low fuss mini film festival, so we’d appreciate getting the films in a format that allows us to put them onto a single dvd.

If you’re keen, please get in touch: cam.walker@foe.org.au

I would also love to hear from anyone keen to volunteer their skills to turn the individual films into a package and for help with logistics.

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