Rumble on Jagungal

Sometimes it's all about the approach...

After a pretty crappy winter and warm wet spring (including a nasty August hamstring injury), skiing has been off the radar for the better part of September. In fact spring hasn't looked so grim in a while, with only the Main Range still offering any lingering lines. And with the Alpine way closed indefinitely following a landslide between Khancoban and Tom Groggin (and with precious little snow to clear anyway), the Tooma Road had been opened prematurely this year in a bid to grant Mexicans like me passage to the NSW ski fields. It's a good and very scenic road, and it's a shame they don't ordinarily keep it open through winter. But it's still a very long drive to the resorts - unless, that is, you've had your eyes set on the northernmost peak over 2000 m on the Australian mainland since you could remember...

A long way from just about anywhere, Mt Jagungal (2061 m asl) sits in the middle of the Jagungal Wilderness, which is certainly wilderness enough in winter when any venture into its midst almost always necessitates a couple of nights' hut stays or snow camping. 

Since Charlotte was little, we've had a bedtime game known as 'Rumble in the Jungle' which is now enjoyed by all 3 kids and which is basically stacks-on-Daddy. Maman isn't fond of it as it tends to get the kids wound up before bedtime, and usually ends up in tears - and she tends to get a little embarrassed on seeing a grown man cry.

After a night at the G on Friday watching the Cats (who insist impinging on my spring skiing) go down in a close one to Hawthorn, I got a few hours sleep before waking up Charlotte and heading off at 5a.m. on Saturday morning. We made the Round Mountain Trail Head car-park in just over five hours, and set off on the 15 km undulating trail to Derschko's Hut. I was surprised that it had snowed the previous day down to about 1500 m, with up to 20 cm of fresh at altitude, and was a little concerned at how my 8 year old would go trudging through slush. I had some new mini kicker-skins that I could have christened but stuck to walking so I could try to keep her feet dry, which was RULE NUMBER ONE... and which was broken soon enough.

It was all very beautiful - such a vast area of rolling alpine wonderland that seems to stretch forever, a massive space, interspersed with exquisite trout-filled streams, and a crisp and incredible light that stretches the mind. And muscles - over the three days we clocked up over 50 kilometres and nearly 3000 m of vertical. Navigation at least is easy as the country is sparsely wooded, with 

Jagungal itself serving as a massive ever present guiding beacon.

We walked in and out in stunning weather, but unfortunately scored a crap day on Sunday (when it mattered) for our ascent up Jagungal itself. The morning had looked promising, but the bad weather came in at about 1900 m (we couldn't find any direct trail and ended up bush-bashing up a moraine field). By 2000 m it was cold, windy and snowing so that when we got to the true summit it was more or less a whiteout. By this time, Charlotte had broken through snow into deep puddles and her feet were saturated. I was a bit concerned so put her on my shoulders and skied down the gentle northwest-facing corridor down to 1800 m to get her out of the weather. It was my only line for the whole 3 days, which is a long way to have ported skis and boots for.

But if skiing Mt Blanc taught that it's not all about me, this trip has taught me that it's not even always about the skiing. The greatest gift you can give your kids is an appreciation for the outdoors, and this was an ambitious alpine induction by anyone's standards. Back in Derschko's (which we had turned into a 27-degree sauna) for lunch, I dozed off with Charlotte giving me a massage whilst she read exerts from "A quoi tient la beauté des montagnes" When I awoke the sun was out and I remarked that we would have been better climbing in the afternoon - to which she replied: "Let's go!"Again.

I think she's a convert. 

This time we double-layered socks with plastic bags, and then sleeked (Sleek is gaffer-tape for anaesthetists: it holds several Victorian public hospitals together) her gaiters and shoes.

Unfortunately in trying to find the true path up for our second summit, I ended up making a navigational error which committed us to smashing through alpine heath for about an hour. Whilst waist-high for me, it was over Charlotte's head and whilst her feet remained dry, the rest of her was pretty soon soaked. Then the weather came in again and we decided to call it a day.

On the walk out on Monday, Charlotte and I made a pact to return to this very special place - hopefully next time on skis for the entire route once her feet are big enough for an alpine touring rig.

The following photos got muddled in the upload and are in no particular order. Click photo for slideshow (62 culled from about a thousand...)

Skiing with wombats

Behind every great young skier or budding mountaineer, there is always a couple of parents who love skiing, and the mountains. Such parents, whilst vaguely noble, are inherently selfish - to wit, they want their kids to share the same insatiable passions as their own. My parents (thank you very much Annie and Roy - Mt Blanc was your fault!) were just such - they even invested in the Oz ski industry, which surely should have rang some alarm bells.. 

The challenges of getting young kids up and skiing (and passionate about it), are many and varied. Whilst many might consider skiing a sport, for us it is one of the more beautiful recreations. If my son grows up to to be more enthusiastic about golf for example (or my daughters more roused by twitter and Facebook), then I will consider myself a failure as a parent. I don't need them to win GS races (the odds of which, as Australians even with French alpine connections, are immeasurably minute) to appreciate the alpine environment. But I do need them to understand how to buckle their boots, assemble all their gear, carry their skis, ride a chairlift or Poma, take a timely wee, clean up their shit, and, most importantly, appreciate the costs involved, particularly in Australia.

We live on the driest continent. It is a miracle it even snows here, and some years it sucks. But it is what it is, and the the Australian alpine is unique and wonderful. And so the most important message of all in these times perhaps, is to turn off the fricking lights. 

I think that skiing lessons these days are no where near as important as lessons in tree-planting, offsetting one's own carbon pollution, and getting out there in the wild under one's own steam.

Despite (or perhaps to spite) a nasty hamstring injury last weekend, I spent a majority of my weekend with a three year old between my knees. Charlotte and Lucie are much improved, and it is as much a joy as always to see my beautiful ski buddy still ripping. Like me, she comes alive with a pair of planks attached to her feet. And we ate well.

As the seasons become slimmer, I am developing a heightened wariness of the backcountry. There were significant avalanches on the Main Range this weekend. When you have large amounts of precipitation hovering five degrees either side of zero, layers form.

I was happier to rest with the family this weekend.        

August Freshies

This weekend was our Crosscut Saw weekend. It had been pencilled in for a long time. And somewhere near Mt Speculation tonight, my mates are in tents braving gale-force winds and likely heavy rain. Tomorrow morning they will have to trudge twelve odd kilometres back to Mt Cobbler in a blizzard.

I should be with them and I feel for them, I really do - but the forecast has been evident for a while, and I wanted no part of it. After skiing Mt Blanc last month, I have become fully soft. But I've also since been thinking a bit about my own mortality in the context of being a father of three, and of the greater importance of fatherhood. (That's why I still had to get away this weekend...)

Neither Scott nor Morry could be convinced of powder, a comfy bed, red wine and a hot fire, over misery. But I have climbed with Scott before and am aware of his particular summit-fever-syndrome. We have climbed volcanoes in blizzards despite the probability of chest deep powder - and Scott would have in fact summited Everest if some A-hole hadn't stolen his oxygen.  

I recently watched an Interview with Christophe Profit whose three point meme of 'preparation, confidence and conditions' rang true for me after Mt Blanc when I was fortunate enough to marry all three. If you don't have all three, then you're best off in the soft country of Hotham where you'll never get lost, are unlikely to get trapped or hammered by the conditions, and can usually find awesome untracked snow on some aspect nearly every day of the ski season.

The drive up on Thursday was very pretty after an overnight foot of fresh, and we headed straight out to Orchard, which the authorities are keeping closed because they're a bunch of greedy cheapskates who are shit skiers, and who don't even care much for skiing (over and above herding the entire mountain down Slalom Gully). By the way, they don't check tickets at Gotcha and haven't installed one of their dehumanising scanners. (Here's a novel idea - strip tickets, like the 70s. Or just make the lifts free - they'll be arriving in droves.)

Anyway, it was good to get away again from the resort cattle chaos with Darbs, Hans, and Pete. We had half a dozen runs in ankle-deep quality snow in the Orchard area before heading out to Loch where we met Britta, who had already done a good job in defacing Machinery. Darbs had last met Brit at Mt Olympus where they filmed a low-budget dirtbag BC telemark ski flick.

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBcRBi1dKEw)

Brit telemarks how I imagine I'd like to telemark if I could be bothered. We all had a few runs before heading back to Zirky's to meet Murf for a backcountry Shofferhofer.

Today Darbs went soft, and Hans and I were planning on the Workshop Chutes - however just before cafe-o'clock I skied the main chute below Oz Drift and was pleasantly surprised by ankle deep powder which was mostly wind-drift from the howling forces above, but with no windpack. The climb out was difficult as usual, but I was enthused enough to talk Hans into an afternoon spent needling all of the ridges and chutes of this awesome and vast terrain. With sun and good snow, it doesn't get much better.

This weekend