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.

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. 

Snow, Statistically

If you want to know what's going to happen this season, check out what the Grasshopper has to say. According to him we're looking at a decent average season ... but what does that mean?!?!?

Last year I found some historic snow data and recently - with some creative URL tweaking - I was able to retrieve the 2017 data as well. Last year was actually quite a good season with an early start, a bit lazy but average first half and then from mid August onward it dumped down well above the long-term average. 

For us this meant the late-season VCC trip to Bogong had plenty of snow (see pics below) and we were able to do some very stupid stuff 😈

2017 Snow Season

Will it be the same this year? Who knows - at least the season got out of bed on the right foot. Below you'll find the long-term snow statistics for Mount Buller with the some upcoming trips* as black dots.  Now taking the Grasshopper's words for granted we're looking at something along the green line. Nice!

Mt Buller Snow Stats with upcoming trips

Whatever your plans are in the Australian High Country for this winter, it does look promising ... unless you don't like snow ... you weirdo ... get off my website!

Pray for snow! 
Cheers
Philipp


 * Not all of these trips are going to the Mt Buller area but this gives you an idea what to expect if you're going on one of them.

Late Season VCC Mountain Trip - Bogong 24./25.9.2017

Data sourced from data.vic.gov.au
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International 

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
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International