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‘Stopping Climate Change Is Hopeless. Let’s Do It.’

Auden Schendler is well known to many skiers and riders as being a key figure in snow industry efforts to move towards sustainability. He is the Vice President of Sustainability at the Aspen Snowmass resort in Colorado.

Just before the IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C report was released, Auden co-authored an opinion piece in the New York Times with Andrew P. Jones. Given Auden’s pivotal role in the snow community, I thought it was worth sharing some excerts from it here which underscore the political challenge we face if we are serious about resolving the ‘climate problem’. The full article is available here.

Continue reading “‘Stopping Climate Change Is Hopeless. Let’s Do It.’” →

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Thredbo to offset all of its lifting and snowmaking electricity

As we all know, resort riding and skiing is an energy intensive recreation. While resorts have generally been a bit slow off the mark to reduce their greenhouse emissions here in Australia, there are some heartening developments happening.

One example of leadership comes from Thredbo resort in NSW.

Continue reading “Thredbo to offset all of its lifting and snowmaking electricity” →

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Boothy’s Blog – 5 Ideas to Make Skiing in Australia Better

There are many good reasons to love Mountainwatch. From the snow season forecasts from The Grasshopper to the ‘every snow cam you need to see in the one place’ coverage of resorts, to lots of snow community news, there is always lots going on.

I recently spotted this post from Chris Booth, who asked five ‘snow personalities’ about what would make skiing in Australia better. The response I liked best was that we should tow Australia 15 degrees south towards Antarctica.

Continue reading “Boothy’s Blog – 5 Ideas to Make Skiing in Australia Better” →

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Protect Our Winters at Mt Buller with Chris Davenport

Chris Davenport is a Protect Our Winters POW board member and is widely regarded as one of the premier bigmountain skiers in the world today. Among his many mountaineering achievement Chris was the first person to ski all fifty-four of Colorado’s 14,000 foot peaks in less than a year. He has also guided and skied on Mt Everest. This month he visits Mt Buller for the first time.

Chris is visiting Australia to spread the word on “why we need winter’ and will speak at the Mt Buller cinema on Tuesday 24th July 2018 at 7pm. The talk will be followed by a screening of the new Teton Gravity Research film ‘Rogue Elements’ in which Mt Buller’s own Mitch Reeves features.

Continue reading “Protect Our Winters at Mt Buller with Chris Davenport” →

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Thredbo Dedicates a Weekend to Environmental Awareness, Sustainability & Education

Some significant announcements from Thredbo resort:

  • Thredbo Announces 100% of its lifting and snowmaking electricity will be offset for winter 2018 thanks to a unique partnership with Arnhem Land Fire Abatement Project (ALFA)
  • POW Australia to launch with a Hike to Kozzie and an information night lead by international free-skiing legend and POW board member Chris Davenport in Thredbo
  • To support National Tree Day (Sunday 29 July) Thredbo will be encouraging all guests to offset their journey emissions by matching all guest tree purchases / donations over the weekend thanks to Thredbo’s vehicle offset partnership with Greenfleet

Continue reading “Thredbo Dedicates a Weekend to Environmental Awareness, Sustainability & Education” →

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Hike for POW with Chris Davenport

Thredbo, Protect Our Winters and Chris Davenport present a day of raising awareness around POW and the importance of protecting our beautiful and unique environment.

You can join a hike to the summit of Mt Kosciuszko  on friday 27 July at Thredbo, followed by a discussion night with Chris.

Continue reading “Hike for POW with Chris Davenport” →

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Incoming

What a great start to winter 2018! Those good early falls in May disappeared, but then we got the best snow pack for June in 17 years! And now we have another big system bearing down on us.

As always, forecasts vary, and this far out, they may be more enthusiastic than the reality we will see over the weekend. Let’s hope this system does deliver the goods.

Here’s a quick check at what some of the key snow websites are saying.

If you’re heading out after the storm, be aware that there may be some avalanche risk as the fresh settles on a sun affected layer. Check the Mountain Sports Collective backcountry advisory before you get on the trail.

This one is from MountainWatch.

This is from Snow watch.

This one comes from Jane Bunn:

Big snow system, mainly Saturday, snow up high from Friday. 

A high is moving to the east and cold fronts are approaching. This will make it windy.

We stay dry through to the end of Wednesday, but one of these fronts may produce rain on Thursday (up to 5mm). It is too warm for snow.

A front breaks through on Friday. It starts warm with rain for all resorts, but there is enough cold air for it to snow to 1600 metres at times. Up to 25 mm of precipitation – with 5 to 20 cm of that falling as snow up high.

A stronger front pushes through on Saturday, and this is all cold. Snow falls down to 900 metres with 15 to 30 cm of snow.

So, this brings 20 to 50 cm of snow all up. 

The chance of snow showers on Sunday, the slight chance of snow showers early next week, until the high moves back in.

 

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The MSC backcountry advisory service is Go

The Mountain Sports Collective backcountry advisory service is operating again this winter.

Based on three key regions – Kosciusko national park in NSW, north east VIC and the central Victorian Alps – each advisory is updated as conditions change. They cover snow and weather conditions. If you’re heading out of resort and into the higher mountains its worth checking the conditions before you go.

You can find the advisory here.

Please consider becoming a member. This helps us to run the area reports.

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Here it comes

After a fairly ordinary opening weekend, are we finally getting to the real part of winter?

It seems to depend who you talk to but the general answer is YES.

These are the seven day forecasts for Australia from MountainWatch.

This is the one from SnowWatch. Obviously, longer term models become less reliable, with a greater chance of the cold front being shunted off by a blocking High system or weakening, etc. We’ve all had our hearts broken many times by seeing a 15 day forecast that looks mind blowing slowly dissolve into drizzle and a bit of cloud, so do ‘adjust your set’ to prepare yourself for disappointment. But the short term forecast looks great.

The Jane Bunn forecast (via ski.com.au) looks pretty spectacular.

A series of cold fronts is passing through, driven by a complex area of low pressure that slowly moves past, just south of Australia.  

The heavier snow coincides with the colder air. Its still a little warm today (Wednesday) and Thursday, then we are proper cold from Friday. Snow down to 900 metres on Friday and Saturday, lowering to 600 metres for Saturday night and early Sunday.

Northern resorts see the most from this system as the airflow is northwesterly for much of the time. Baw Baw picks up what is left on Monday into Tuesday. 

The high moves in on Tuesday, bringing a return to sunshine.

We’re looking at 40 to 95 cm of snow for northern resorts.

Lets hope this is correct!

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Report into climate impacts on Victorian resorts

There is no doubt that climate change is already impacting on snow conditions in Australia, and hence impacting on the industries that need snow to be viable. When it comes to responding to this existential threat, there are three key options: ignore it (in the hope it will go away), reduce our contribution to the problem (also called mitigation) or just try to adapt to the changes that the problem brings (also known as adaptation). With few exceptions, ski resorts in Australia have opted for the first and the third options. A sensible, responsible and forward thinking ski industry would be doing both adaptation and mitigation.

A report released by the Victorian government will help local resorts steer themselves along the path of adaptation.

Continue reading “Report into climate impacts on Victorian resorts” →

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Backcountry film festival – Melbourne, May 9.

It’s happening tonight!

Melbourne

Wed May 9. 7pm – 9.30pm.

Co-hosted with RMIT Outdoors Club.

Storey Hall (RMIT), 342-344 Swanston St, Melbourne.

Suggested donation:

$8 conc & students/ $15 waged/ $20 solidarity.

Tickets at the door. There will be plenty of room. All funds raised go to the Friends of the Earth climate campaign

There will be a bar run by the RMIT Outdoors Club before the films start (from about 6.15pm).

THE PROGRAM

6.15ish – Bar opens

7pm sharp – 1st films – local films plus first half of the Winter Wildlands program (6 films)

8pm – ish: intermission

8.25 – 2nd batch of films (3 films)

8.45 ish – end of program

 

Facebook page here.

In addition to the BCFF program (eight great films – check here for full details), we will be showing:

Mount Townsend 2209 – Australian Freeride Story (3 mins 53 sec)

Mt Townsend imageIn keeping with our tradition of showing an Australian backcountry film at the start of the program, this year we have a great short production about a late season mission in 2016 to ski Mt Townsend on the Main Range of the Snowy Mountains.

Film maker Lachlan Humphreys says

With the Australian ski season coming to the end, I joined Australian sisters and pro skiers, Anna and Nat Segal, for one last push for the hills. Filmed in October last year, Mount Townsend 2209 follows Anna and Nat as they spend five days camping and touring together under the peak of Mount Townsend, together with their American/Canadian skier friend, Holly Walker.

Ski touring is undergoing a rebirth; a new form of free skiing, attracting people to the great outdoors and encouraging people to venture beyond the boundaries of ski resorts. There is no better way to explore the vast terrain Australia has tucked away than to camp out under the stars and experience the magic of the sunset on the western faces.

The sisters’ mission was to nut out a plan for their upcoming ski film, Finding the Line and they felt Mount Townsend was no better place to do so.

Produced by Clean Line Productions

cleanlineproductions.com

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Climate change impacts on resorts – and how they’re taking action to reduce emissions

We all know that climate change poses an existential threat to the snow and alpine environments that we love. While Australia’s lower mountains and modest latitude make it something of a miracle that we even have snow, there is little doubt that already our seasons are getting shorter, with less snow (our snow pack has been in decline since 1957).

But it is disturbing to see the impacts that are happening elsewhere, in countries at higher latitudes and with higher peaks. This recent story sums up some of what’s happening in North America, and how some resorts are responding.

Continue reading “Climate change impacts on resorts – and how they’re taking action to reduce emissions” →

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