Winter Is Here ... and C19

It has been a while since the last post ... I got busy and then the whole SARS-CoV-2 shits-how started. You know all about it. 

Let's start on a good note: We got a beautiful new team member. Little Winter joined the crew in late May and although adventuring is a bit limited, we're still getting enough fresh air to be prepared for the trips ahead. Her older brother is pretty stoked to show her the ropes. 

Now going from Winter (Baby) to Winter (Season), I've restarted the Natural Snow Depth Tracker. Spoiler: So far there's just a bit of dusting and Falls Creek & Hotham have postponed their season opening until the 6.7.2020. In short we haven't missed anything. 

Obviously it's way too early to write this season off and hopefully it will be good enough for some backcountry fun. In doubt ask the Grasshopper because he has the latest intel on the fluffy white.

Victorian Winter Trips

Obviously the virus slashed most trips until now and the spike in community transmission doesn't spark confidence in organised trips going ahead. Currently the numbers are limited to 10 people as they're classified as outdoor gatherings. The Mountain Sports Collective has a series of events in the line-up. The upcoming Uni trips (MUMC & ROC) have a questing mark hanging over them. Carpooling isn't happening and nobody knows whether the trips go ahead at all. Alpine SAR Victoria has announced they're doing their main training event if restrictions allow it. The Alpine Club Melbourne has only two trips lined up but given the circumstances that's not too shabby.

Here we go:

• ROC Intro to splitboarding - Mt Stirling Fri 24 - Sun 26 Jul  
• MSC Slay Safe - Falls Creek 30th / 31st July
• aSAR Alpine Rescue Training - Mt Baw Baw Fri 14 Aug - Sun 16 Aug
• AVM Winter Camp - Feathertop Sat 15 Aug - Sun 16 Aug
• MSC Slay Safe - Mount Hotham 27th / 28th August
• ROC Christmas just in July - Edmonson's Hut, Falls Creek Fri 31 Jul - Sun 2 Aug
• MUMC Midnight Ascent - Feathertop Fri 28 Aug - Sun 30 Aug
• AVM Stirling Snow Camp - Mt Stirling Sat 29 Aug - Sun 30 Aug
• Backcountry Festival - Mount Hotham  Fri 4 Sep - Sun 6 Sep
• MSC Slay Safe - Main Range 24th / 25th September

Let's keep the fingers crossed 🤞 that the covidiots don't ruin it for us. I won't bother telling you how the access to the resorts works since that might change tomorrow and you're better of checking the right website from the start. Just keep in mind simply rocking up isn't an option this year.

Crowded Backcountry?

Mont Equipment Facebook Ad

With the immanent opening of the resorts and the limitations at the same time, it's not a surprise that the chatter in backcountry forums has picked up. Of course this includes the usual suspects getting stoked but there are also more than usual noobie questions - which isn't bad at all, better ask than being dead. On top of that are so many gear requests that I wasn't the only one wondering if this is above the usual.

If people use SARS-CoV-2 as an opportunity to finally make a move on their backcountry aspirations, it should not come as a surprise. I think this is a good thing since more backcountry lovers means a bigger voice for access and better availability of gear because there's money in it. In that spirit we should reach out a helping virtual hand and be nice to each other. However this also might come with a couple of challenges. 

First of all the meat-works outbreaks around the globe should have taught us that cold & wet indoor spaces are to be avoided. Yes - don't use the huts. I know this is hard for some but it's far better than killing Nanna. Some huts will have a sign limiting the amount of people who can be in there e.g. Bluff Spur Hut is limited to 4 people however the reasonable thing would be not to go in there at all. Also check out the box about Cleve Cole Hut below.

The second thing is that enthusiasm and interest are no substitute for knowledge and experience. The backcountry is littered with hazards, like rocks under the shallow surface, avalanches, hypothermia, carbon-monoxide poisoning, camp fire burns, icy slip'n slides or exposure. Only time will tell whether this is a good combination with beginners heading for the hills. Anecdotally SES Bright, BSAR and Police SAR Victoria expect some call-outs. 

That said if you're one of those beginners, check out events like the Alpine Club's Winter Camp or the MSC Slay/Safe program. They are really good and free for members.

Personally I don't expect this year to be a rescue disaster. Most rescues don't result in a major call-out anyway - as we've seen it on the Razorback last year. 

Slay Safe ⛄

Cheers Philipp

COVID-19 Parks Victoria have asked the Mount Bogong Club  to ensure that the rules put in place by the Chief  Health Officer are respected at the Cleve Cole Hut.  This means a maximum of eight people inside the hut 1.5 metre social distancing is maintained no cooking or sleeping in the hut  fill out the visitors’ book for contact tracing purposes. supply and use your own hand and surface sanitisers. Sanitise all surfaces after use - this includes toilet door handles. IF THESE REQUIREMENTS ARE NOT MET  THE CLEVE COLE MEMORIAL HUT MAY  BE CLOSED BY PARKS VICTORIA.

Rescue @ Razorback

After Emil's grand entrance into the world of snow-camping last year, we took him out again to Federation Hut. The Winter Camp is annual event since 2013 to get mountaineers, snow- and backcountry lovers together for a play in the fluffy white. Each year we return from the mountain with great memories and this year would provide a lot of entertainment ... although not for everyone. 

As it turned out Anna's and my fear our little offspring will keep the camp-site awake was completely unfounded ... it was actually an AW139 helicopter hovering about 20m above the hut at 5am almost flattening a couple of tents with its downwash ... and of course Emil slept through all of this.

Our recent post (see below) got a bit of air-time on social media however we didn't go into the details of what had happened and what we should learn from it. Please keep in mind this isn't about blaming someone. Yes of course these rescues would have been preventable - the guys could have just stayed at home but that's not what we want. As a SAR volunteer I want people to go out on adventures and enjoy the benefits which come with being outdoors. In this case nobody got injured so these are great outcomes. Overall the (mental) health benefits of you getting fresh air outweighs the costs of the occasional rescue by far!

So don't be a keyboard warrior, think about where you did stupid mistakes which could have led to a call-out and learn how to do it better next time.

What happened?

There were two helicopter rescues. The first one took place around 4 pm and can be filed under "unfortunate circumstances". One of the two experienced guys simply got sick and that's something which is hard to prevent. Fortunately they had left early and therefore they could make the call for help while there was some daylight left. There's still a takeaway in this: 

Once you called for help, put your valuables, car-keys, wallet and other need-to-have small items in your pockets. It's not guaranteed that the rescue heroes get your backpack.

Locations of rescues 17.8.2019

The second rescue happen not far from the first - about 400m - and also not far from the hut at around 9:30 pm. Well that's when the whole thing started. Sunset on that day was 5:37 pm with last light just after 6 pm and a full moonrise around 7 pm which means the visibility was good because there were no clouds.

The hikers started at Diamantina Hut around 3 pm which means they covered roughly 9km in 5-6h. This isn't a terrible pace although it's at the slower end of the spectrum. 

As mentioned in the facebook post, a MICA flight paramedic was winched down near the spot but couldn't be picked up with the hypothermic patient due to high winds. The paramedic and the AT skiers who stumbled upon the hikers earlier moved everyone to the hut from where the patient and the paramedic were eventually airlifted at 5 am.

Is the Razorback a trap for beginners?

In winter all hikes are easy to underestimate since a bit of snow can slow you down significantly. However in my opinion the Razorback is especially prone to lure people into a false sense of security.

• In summer it's a simple and easy hike. Trailrunners wrap it up in less than an hour quite regularly while hikers take about 4 hours.
• It's easy to access. You simply park your car at Diamantina Hut and off you go. 
• It doesn't look that far or steep from the road. Yes you can see Feathertop from Mt Hotham and it seems quite ok.
• Finding the trail shouldn't be hard since you just follow the ridge-line.

The Razorback and Feathertop

This doesn't sound too bad for a little snow-shoe adventure, right? Length-wise it's almost the same as Bungalow Spur and you have far less of elevation to tackle. For sure the Razorback is the faster and easier option, isn't it?

Yeah nah mate - unfortunately the reality is slightly different:

• In winter the time on the trail blows out quite fast. Five to seven hours aren't unusual which means if you want to leave some room for error, you should be on the trail by 12 noon at the very latest. Earlier if you're beginner or not a fast walker.
• It is indeed easy to access but only costs a bomb since you need to pay resort entry for Hotham - it's $102 for 2 days.
• It's roughly 10 km up and down little hills with 300m of ascent. In snow that's not a piece of cake especially since the whole track will be covered. The icing on the non-existent cake are icy conditions because some of the slopes are quite a steep and exposed and a slip can result in a fast slide into a snow-gum. In general that's fairly unhealthy unless you know how to self arrest.
• In good conditions the trail isn't hard to find however Australian winter has the tendency to be windy and it comes often with poor visibility. Then it's easy to miss a turn and go down one of the many ridges to the side and after dark all bets are off anyway. Speaking of windy - which is was on that Saturday - the whole Razorback is extremely exposed and every little movement of air hits you hard with a wind-chill factor. 

Anna and Emil in the snow

There you go. Suddenly the nice ramp up Bungalow Spur seems to be quite reasonable despite 1100m of elevation gain. This track is actually easy to follow, sheltered from the wind, at least half way without snow and therefore overall faster in winter. Anna did it in a bit over four hours with a baby in the backpack. Now don't get overconfident - that's on the upper end of the speed-scale but it shows you even with 25kg on the back it's a fast approach.

How to do the Razorback

In good winter weather the Razorback is an amazing hike. If you haven't done it yet, the above story of doom and disaster shouldn't deter you from doing it one day. There are just a couple of simple things to consider:

• Check the forecast and the avalanche bulletin. Wind, snow or rain and bad visibility are to be avoided.
• Leave early. Aim for a 10 am departure at the latest.
• Don't go after big fresh dumps or if the bulletin shows other severe dangers.
• Know how to self arrest and carry the needed ice-axe, if the conditions are icy.
• Have an emergency shelter like a bothy or bivy bag.
• Pro-tip: If you have friends with another car, do a key-swap. They come up Bungalow Spur and go out the Razerback the next day. Since you already did the Razor, you can scoop down to the Snowline and have a beer while you wait for your car to arrive.

Some of the VCC Crew on Sunday Morning

Now in case you wonder whether the four hikers of the second rescue were experienced or not, don't take my word for it. By coincident Kat Crema - two time Winter Olympian and Winter X Games competitor - came across them: 

"There was definitely a lack of experience there... we passed the 4 snow shoers on our way back to the road at 4 pm, they were 1.5 hours in and least 3-4 hours away and didn’t know where Fed Hut was... 😬"

Hopefully you learned something from the post and if it's only to take you wallet and car-keys out of the pack when the chopper is coming 😉

Cheers and enjoy the backcountry 🍻

Philipp

Dud of a Snow Season

Mt Hotham 8.7.2019 - 

One third of the Australian snow season is almost over and so far 2019 has been a dud. Currently Mt Buller is sitting on a rock-solid 0 cm of natural snow cover while Mt Hotham has sad 13 cm.  The snow-makers are going great guns but unfortunately this does nothing for the backcountry. Statistically similar seasons have never recovered and only touched the long-term average snow-depth but that's about it.
Currently it's possible to get to Vallejo Gantner by mountain-bike which is great if you're not a snow lover (go away!).

Dud-Snow-Seasons - Mt Hotham 1997 - 2019

Natural Snow Depths in cm

I've plotted the past culprits 1997 - 1999, 2001, 2006, 2010, 2013 & 2015 and you can see it doesn't look too promising. Although the Grasshopper forecasts a dump for Thursday, don't be surprised if this season is will end up as a write-off. You'll see 2019 in the bright pink line is not progressing in the right direction. In fact it is on the best way to hit all time lows of 2006. Hopefully the predicted Thursday 's storm will smooth the pain a little bit. 

Given there isn't a point in hanging around, we'll nick off to Europe for some mountaineering. Hopefully the situation looks better when we're back in August. Keep your fingers crossed 

... and maybe this season is beating the odds and develops into a powder-fest during the 2nd half 

Cheers 

Philipp 

Wahooo! It's Winter!

And we're off to a good start - 5. June marks the first day for which snow-data get's recorded and statistically 92% of all seasons since 1993 have less than 10cm of snow or are completely dry. Not today!

Both Mount Buller and Hotham got a good dump last week and now we just have to hope the Winter keeps delivering. If you want to know how this season will do, check out the Grasshopper's June Outlook. Downunder our shred-fests are dependant on the big climate drivers El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO), the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) and Southern Annular Mode (SAM) but the Grasshopper can explain their impact much better than I could.

If you want to know how the season is progressing, I'll track it on this page:

Natural Snow Depths 2019

This excludes any snow-making which means it gives you an idea of surrounding backcountry areas. The Mount Buller numbers are good for the Bluff and Stirling while Hotham gives you an indication of Feathertop and the Bogong High Plains.

Cheers 🍻

Philipp

P.S.: ... some pics from the early season opening @ Buller

The Australian Snow Mystery

The 2018 snow season has been very good to us but unfortunately with spring being full steam ahead it's time to wrap it up. Last year was the best season since bomber of 2004 and although most of Australia is in drought this year topped 2017 a bit further. It started with a solid dump mid-June which laid the foundation for a combination of cold nights and barely any rain events to make it an awesome shred fest.

The Australian Snow Fields early last century

The last two winters were well above average as you can see in the chart. They were basically so good that you could almost believe the old myth that it snows more in the Australian Alps than in Switzerland.

But does it? Does more snow fall in the Australian Alps than in Switzerland? 

And where is this idea coming from? The origin of this myth seems to be this sentence:

"Where winter turns sun-baked valleys and ridges to snowfields larger than those of Switzerland"

It can be found in the 1957 documentary "Roof of Australia" which was shot right in the middle of the construction of the Snowy Mountains scheme (see below). You'll see a lot of NSW footage as well as a bit from the Victorian High Country.  It's fun to watch so have a look later. 

Now let's do a myth-busters on this claim. First of all we need to define snowfields. Obviously it's a field with snow on it but how big is it and where is it? 

• Snowfield = Area above the elevation where you reasonably can expect snow in the middle of winter.

That's what I will use here. If you're a Victorian back-country lover, you hopefully won't disagree that snow most of the times starts above Camp Creek Gap. That's at 1100m so let's just use this for Australia. Yes it often snows down to 500m once a year however the snow barely stays there for long. On the other hand you quite often need to walk before hitting the snow-line but let me stick with this value. It only goes in Australia's favour. 

Which value do we use for Switzerland? If you image-search "Zurich Winter", you'll find heaps of images of a sugar-coated city. Yes it does snow there every winter and personally I've stumbled out of a Zurich club in winter just to fall over 1m of fresh powder. The average annual snow-fall is 85cm and there are 53.3 days with a closed snow cover ... but let's be a little bit conservative and use a higher elevation than the 400m of Zurich. 800m seems fair, right? 

1100m vs. 800m it is! Bring it on baby!

Oooops. Yeah I think you don't need to be a rocket-surgeon to realise the Swiss red is bigger than the Australian one. At the same scale the area is already much bigger so we don't need to go into the average accumulated snow fall per year because this would be very sad. E.g. Hotham (1800m) vs. Arosa (1840m) makes me cry ... it's 356cm vs. 840cm 😭 Therefore I'm calling this

MYTH BUSTED!

Ok. Some of you might want to argue it's about skiable snowfields. Watch some of Candide Thovex' videos and then we'll have another chat. 

Cheers and enjoy summer in the High Country ... or winter in the North!

Philipp

P.S.: Here's the above mentioned Roof of Australia documentary. For more old-school gems visit the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia or check out the Old School Skiing video of the National Alpine Museum. It's quite entertaining. 

Natural Snow Depths

How much snow can I expect?

Recently I wrote up another description for an upcoming VCC trip and I was wondering how much snow can be expected. Since this is an existential question for all back country adventurers, I gathered some data and put it into the two graphs below. 

• The green line shows you how much snow you can expect on average.
• The blue and orange lines are the max and min extremes - there is quite a wide range!
• And the red line shows you the percentage of bone dry seasons on that day.

The Buller graph gives you an idea for The Bluff, Westridge and the Howitt area while the Hotham graph is obviously for Bogong and Feathertop. E.g. my chance of running on grass around The Bluff on the 23rd September is 25% while if I'm lucky enough to find snow it might be around the 30cm mark.

You're welcome 😁

Philipp

P.S.: Also keep in mind climate change is real and happening which means the red line goes up and the green line goes down. I know. It's sucks.

Mt Buller Natural Snow Depths 1993 - 2016

Mt Hotham Natural Snow Depths 1993 - 2016

Data sourced from data.vic.gov.au
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