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Don’t mention the Shark

If you’re a pop culture fan, then you’re probably familiar with the film Jaws. Released in 1975, it was a blockbuster of its day, focused on a coastal community in north eastern USA. After a Great White shark starts eating random tourists, the local police chief realises he needs to catch the shark and plans to close the local beaches, which are crammed with summer visitors. But the Mayor persuades him to reconsider, fearing that the town’s summer economy will suffer. The local coroner backs the mayor, and so the deaths continue. Eventually, as the deaths continue, the mayor comes around and a chase ensures, with the shark eventually being killed.

The winter of 2026 is a perfect analogy to Jaws. With the hand of climate change clearly influencing our sad winter, the police chief is the climate activists talking about the reality of global heating, while the part of the mayor is played by the resort managers and ski companies, who continue their long denial about climate change, in the interests of ‘not scaring the tourists’.

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As we wait for the snow, support your local business

As expected early winter hasn’t exactly delivered deep powder days (yet!). But the mountains are full of people ready and waiting to work and local businesses who have been preparing for months and bringing in lots of stock.

So until the snow starts in earnest, please do what you can to support your on mountain workers and businesses. Visit the hills as you would, and be ready to diversify, as these businesses below are doing.

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Backcountry magazine – the future of skiing in a melting world.

I’ve subscribed to Backcountry magazine for at least a decade. Wonderful images of glorious mountains, good stories, and a lot of practical info for backcountry people. And it makes me feel connected to a global community of snow freaks who enjoy doing the hard work and who are willing to ‘earn their turns’ through old fashioned uphill travel.

If you follow mainstream science you will know that climate change is impacting winters. Here in Australia, snow pack has been in decline since at least 1957. Yet there is still a lot of very weird denial about climate change in the snow community. So when you dare to link science and declining snow pack you’ll normally get yelled at. But that shouldn’t stop us for talking about the facts. And BC mag has done a good job of that in their current edition, subtitled ‘hidden routes, extinct lines and the future of skiing in a melting world’.

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Mountain Journal turns 16!

Memory can be a strange thing. Special and significant moments, experiences and events lodge in our mind and when something triggers their presence they can feel as clear and fresh as the moment you experienced them for the first time. They can be cornerstones around which you build your life, those memories of the moments and times and events that give life meaning and joy, or which strip away the day-to-dayness of ‘normal’ life to reveal a truth.

The dilemma, of course, is when we extrapolate or equate a personal memory or experience with what is happening in the real world. ‘FeelPinons’ drive a lot of the debate in the online world and anecdotes can get confused with data and trends.

So, there was a strange debate about last winter. Forecasts were for a late start to winter and the likelihood of warmer than average temperatures. But by the time June arrived, we were blessed with wonderful and repeat snow storms that delivered the goods. After a couple of very mediocre winters everyone needed a good winter. It was good for resort and valley town businesses and workers and it was wonderful for the spirits of everyone who craves the cold and deep snow pack. And it dragged on in the best possible way, with lines in the backcountry until late in spring.

In that blurring of memory and data, of lived experience and the need for the media to run hyperbolic headlines about ‘the best winter in years’, its hard to actually say if it was a ‘great’ winter or an ’average’ one.

You can read the full reflection here.

 

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Skiing in the Pyrocene

Back in 2022, I helped host an event at Mt Hotham called Climate change, fire and the Alps. I remember being struck by something that was said by one of the speakers. Craig Hore, who at that point was a Ranger in Charge of Fire and Emergency Operations North East District, at Parks Victoria, reflected on his long connection to the mountains. Fire regimes in the high country have changed in the last quarter century, with more frequent and intense fires.

Craig reflected on the fact that since the fires of 2002/3, the mountains have been transformed. With ever more frequent fire and drier conditions, he doesn’t think that we can go back to what the Alps used to be like. In his early days as a Ranger he could drive through older forests for hours. But now so much of the park has been badly impacted by fires. “I doubt we will ever see those old forests again.”

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Winter 2025

Many of us were shocked last winter when the season basically stopped in August. While bad winters will become more common under climate change scenarios, and yes – we have always had good and bad seasons, the abrupt end was hard for people who were planning trips later in the season (and of course terrible for local and on-mountain businesses and staff).

This winter has been so much better – more like a ‘normal’ winter although with obviously less snow at lower elevations. It certainly delivered the snow we all needed after several grim seasons.

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Winter 2025: was it good, average, or an exception?

We’re getting close to October and there is still excellent snow cover across the higher elevations of the Australian high country. After several ‘ordinary’ winters, we really needed this one. Businesses were struggling, workers were facing short seasons and snow lovers were generally depressed. So, 2025 has been the boost we all needed.

I have raved a lot on the website about what a great winter it has been and the snow media has wheeled out the superlatives to describe good snow falls and solid snow pack. Its been truly fantastic.

However, we do also need to remember an important fact. 2025 was not spectacular. It was an average version of what winter should be in the Australian mountains. And sadly, it was an increasingly rare winter – one that started early and maintained good snow pack across higher elevation through to the ‘formal’ end of the season – but which is rapidly becoming unusual, rather than regular.

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In search of Australia’s longest snow depth record

Phil Campbell has written a short story on the length of the snow record in Australia.

Ask anyone interested in Australia’s snow country where the longest record of snow depth is located, and you’ll almost certainly be told it is at Spencers Creek, in the New South Wales Snowy Mountains.

Snow depth and density measurements have been recorded continuously at the Spencer’s Creek site by Snowy Hydro for the past seven decades, commencing in the early years of the Snowy Mountains Scheme in 1954. The site consists of a series of seven poles at a mean elevation of 1830 metres and is one of three ‘index’ sites maintained by Snowy Hydro for snowpack and runoff modelling, along with two other sites at Deep Creek and Three Mile Dam. Numerous lesser known sites exist scattered at different elevations across the Snowy Mountains, many monitored for a few brief years to fit operational needs at the time, with a handful still monitored to this day.

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Dark Days while we wait for the White

I love my backcountry trips and my traditions of getting into the Big Wild. The annual multi day walk in lutruwita/ Tasmania with some mates, the new years eve wander and camp out on Mt Stirling, the road trip to the Snowy Mountains in May. I notice sometimes that half the enjoyment comes from planning and then reflecting on the trip (especially when the actual trip ends up being Type 2 fun).

But this year has been different. After two grim winters, I’ve been obsessing over the forecasts for this season. And as we know they aren’t great. I know that we will get a break at some point, that we will continue to get good and bad winters. But as we pass through another warm autumn, it really does feel like we have crossed some invisible tipping point. As happened with bushfires in the mountains, which suddenly did a ‘step change’ in intensity in the early 2000s, you have to wonder if we have stepped over into a new world where, in Australia at least, our snow pack resembles the boom and bust cycles that have long dominated mountain snow in Tasmania, and less like the consistent snow pack we have generally relied on here on the mainland.

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Late start to winter expected

As we wait for winter snows, every skier, rider and winter enthusiast is scanning the weather and reading the pre season forecasts.

As was reported recently on Weatherzone here April was exactly 1°C warmer than the long-term average across Australia, but the warmth was even more pronounced in Victoria, where temperatures were 2.37°C higher than the long-term average.

That made it Victoria’s warmest April since national record-keeping commenced in 1910, while for Australia as a whole it was the 14th-warmest.

With sustained warm weather and clear skies, no one is really banking on a great season. But after two dire winters, we all need a break, especially the businesses who rely on good snowfalls and a long season.

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Above the Snow Line

Sarah Lynch is an artist based in Naarm (Melbourne) and works primarily in photography, video, and installation. Lynch’s most recent work examines the diversity of the botanical world and the relationship between plants, people, and the ecosystems they inhabit.

Sarah will be presenting at the snow gum summit, which will happen at Dinner Plain from February 14 – 16, 2025.

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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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