Mt THE

A Canadian and Aussie team of skiers and snowboarders sets off on a fifteen-day quest to ride Australia’s steepest backcountry lines.

Words Tim van der Kroght Photography Aaron Dickfos

“This isn’t it.” I was getting saturated, huddling under a rock with two other sweaty dudes, and in a total whiteout at the top of the continent. The winds were howling.

“What?” yelled Chris.

“I don’t know much about survival,” I shouted back. “But this isn’t it.”

The three of us were hiding under the rock avoiding a lightning storm we found ourselves not under, but in. The big metal rod that made up the bones of our shelter, conveniently placed in the highest point around, didn’t seem like the safest place to be. Now, however, we were getting soaked to the bone.

If lightning doesn’t get us, hypothermia will. What are we doing here? I thought to myself not for the first time this trip. So, what were we doing here? Well, we were chasing the steepest lines Australia has on offer.

The plan was simple: Hit up three of Australia’s steepest backcountry zones, with five days camping at each location, with perfect weather all the time and plenty of time to scope lines, get warmed up and bag rad footage showcasing the Australian backcountry’s untapped potential. That was the plan, anyway. But the thing about adventure filming is that, no matter how much you prepare, Mother Nature always has the final say.

This journey started two years earlier, when my friend Chris Wills and I were in Revelstoke, BC, Canada. We were barely employed and living in a temple of ski bummery—a double-width trailer passed down through multiple generations of ski bums. No two pieces of furniture matched, and the walls were plastered with photos from some of snowboarding and skiing’s greatest moments. We spent most of our time either riding or skiing, or talking about riding or skiing. It had been a long spring, and we’d achieved a lot of our goals. We’d also learnt a lot about how we operated in the mountains, and our skills both uphill and downhill had come a long way.

One afternoon, as I was doom scrolling social media, I saw a post from Mt Hotham. In the background was Mt Feathertop. The image took me back to my time doing seasons at Hotham, and I remembered early mornings at work watching the sun rise over the mountain. I was always impressed by it, and always dreamed of riding it, but I lacked the skills, the experience and the right people to do it with. Now, however, I was looking at a mountain I knew I was capable of.

“Ever heard of Mt Feathertop?” I asked Chris, as he prepared his fifth cup of coffee for the day.

“Yeah man,” he said, as his eyes lit up.

“It’s crazy that there’s terrain like that in Australia,” I replied. “It looks siiiick.”

“And that’s just one zone, you should google Watsons Crags. Bogong is sick too.”

And as I did, I started finding more incredible zones I knew I wanted to ride. I’d stare at these pictures and mind shred them, putting down imaginary lines all over the faces. I knew people rode these lines, but why weren’t they more often spoken of? I now know that Wild Mag has been speaking of these places for decades, but back then, two years ago, the more I researched these areas, the more I wondered how it was that most Australians didn’t even know these playgrounds exist. I decided to find out for myself.

Two years later, I’d be in a tent for three weeks, holed up with two stinky guys and a breakaway city girl. I’d be living off bagged food, hiding from lightning storms and sharing my sleeping bag with soggy boot liners, all in an effort to ride, document, and eventually make a film about chasing elusive lines at three locations that offer some of Australia’s steepest terrain: Mt Bogong; the Main Range’s Western Faces; and, of course, Mt Feathertop.

But before that, we needed to con some sponsors into funding our adventure. Then we needed to con some local photographers into filming it. We assembled a rag-tag team of stragglers and hooligans. There was Chris, my ex-roommate, a man I trust wholeheartedly in the mountains, who is not only a great skier but also a vert-crushing beast; Aaron Dickfos, a Jindabyne local with a camera and a passion for pointing it at things; Divya Gordon, an incredibly talented filmmaker with a thirst for adventure, who would soon wonder how she got roped into our circus; and myself, a classic example of someone whose life has been utterly derailed by snowboarding.

PHASE ONE: MT BOGONG

Victoria’s highest peak was the perfect place to kick things off. The three-kilometre hike into Michell Refuge provided easy access to some luxurious camping, and the faces of Bogong— while beautiful and steep—are nonetheless less technical than the terrain we’d be facing later in the trip, and would ease us into the challenges to come.

And so we set off, slogging up the Eskdale Spur Track, suffering under packs laden with riding gear, cameras, drones, spare batteries, camping equipment and a slab of Bridge Road beers.

Michell Hut tucked away just below the treeline, not far from Mt Bogong

Tim laying down some turns on a firm but fun Cairn Gully, a classic Bogong line

Having a hut and crackling fire to dry your gear at the end of the day is like heaven compared to the tent life we’d soon be experiencing on the Main Range

Getting the gear up top is only half the fun

The years of dreaming about this trip and the hours of work that had gone into this project had resulted in high levels of anticipation. Emails, Zoom call meetings, putting together a crew, finding a time that worked for everyone’s work schedules—it all built up. That night, however, as I lay in my sleeping bag, anticipation turned to excitement. We were here. Finally, we were going to spend the next five days on snow. We would soon find out, however, that that would not be the case.

We woke to foul weather, but being of the belief that you have to be in the park to play ball, we headed up the summit ridge regardless. As we pushed on, the weather worsened, and the trail markers we followed—placed roughly every fifty metres— became harder to see. Group members got cold. Tempers got heated. We decided to cut our losses and head back to camp.

We realised we were dealing with a waiting game, and until the sun shone, we’d have to find other ways to spend our time. Fortunately, Michell Refuge was a bustling little ecosystem; multiple groups used the hut, from ski tourers to hikers to pattern-based XC skiers. We were all there for different reasons but were all limited by the same factors, and so we found ourselves becoming friends, playing cards, chopping wood, telling stories, and making jokes. It was my first taste of a community we’d see more of. And let me say, the Aussie backcountry scene is thriving. It didn’t seem to matter what you were doing, how good you were, or how long you’d been doing it; everyone was there to enjoy the mountains, to get outside and to get offline.

Far too often, the backcountry community can feel toxic; inflated egos are often found lurking around trailheads or in huts, sharing opinions and giving tips you neither asked for nor needed. Instead, the community we shared the hut with was down to earth and grassroots, full of smiling people passionate about the mountains and excited to be around others who share their love for them.

Nonetheless, angst grew as the days ticked by. The weather never changed. Frustration set in. We’d all taken swathes of time off to do this trip, and sponsors had expectations we needed to meet; as the days passed, we started worrying that we might never get the sunny day we needed. But with just one day left, we woke up to sparkling skies. We rushed out of bed, crammed food down our gullets, and bolted for the alpine.

As soon as we made our first turns, it all paid off. The waiting game, the mandatory patience…they made us appreciate every little turn and every foot of vert. But while the day was awesome, the mountain and conditions would soon humble us once more. By us, I mean me. After dropping into a line ready to cut a big heel-side turn, I lost my edge and began slipping down the chute. I fought with gravity, tried to get my edge in the snow. The edge bounced and chattered and fought back; eventually, I came to a stop. But I realised I’d found another challenge to overcome—Aussie snow. Riding here isn’t easy. Snow conditions can change so fast; while one turn is slushy, the next could be icy. You need to be able to account for that and ride reactively.

By day’s end, we’d put down five runs. As we went down the ridge back to camp, the sky lit up in a jaw-dropping sunset. Blazing orange sunbeams shone down on luscious green farmlands deep in the valley below. When the alpenglow set in, the snow turned a deep pink. We had been tested, and we had been patient. Now we had been rewarded.

PHASE TWO: THE WESTERN FACES

I knew my best friend was dead. Minutes earlier, Thomas had dropped over a roller in the couloir and was out of sight. But when I followed suit, an avalanche ripped from wall to wall, with Tom in the firing line. I started freaking out. A paralysing anguish overcame me. It was an anguish I’ll never forget.

I especially couldn’t forget it now—despite it being years on since that day—as we headed to the Sentinel after nailing our first lap on Carruthers. Having crossed the deep valley between the two, we were confronted by a face that lay bare with rock; the whole snowpack had failed right down to the dirt. Living in

Revelstoke, I never thought that it’d be in Australia that I saw one of the largest, most destructive avalanches I’ve ever seen. Massive chunks of snow had scoured the valley, bringing trees with it, and leaving the slope scarred like it had been stripped clean by a raging river. An ominous feeling filtered through the crew.

That day with Thomas flooded back. It was in my early years of splitboarding in British Columbia, when he and I were part of a group aiming for a descent called Dogleg Couloir. The backcountry community often talks about trusting gut feelings; later, each of us would later share that their gut was sending signals, but not wanting to be that person in the group, we bit our tongues. The resultant poor communication—and overlooking obvious warning signs—led to bad decision making.

Dogleg Couloir itself was mellow, but accessing it meant traversing below a convex roller (a feature that creates a weak point in the snowpack) and above a large cliff, large enough that you could confidently assume it was an unsurvivable fall. Thomas dropped in first, and jumped around on the roller to see if any snow moved. It held. So he dropped over the roller and out of sight. Feeling confident in his assessment, I followed, made one turn, then another, and then: CRACK. The whole face let loose.

I was lucky; the crown broke at my feet, sparing me from an unsolicited cliff ride. But Thomas, while out of sight, was directly below me. My stomach dropped, and my mind flashed with images of his body—battered, bruised, lifeless. I started yelling for him. No reply.

I started trying to process Thomas’s death, but then I realised where I was. I was out of sight from the group, who wouldn’t have known what had happened. Above me, there was hangfire—snow that could be released at any time, especially if another group member decided to follow. I had to get out of there, but I couldn’t move. Then I heard a voice yelling back. Tom was safely tucked under a rock.

Despite his survival, I still vividly remember that anguish. And I learnt a lot that day, and ever since I’ve been hyper aware of what’s below me. For this reason—especially if I see something like the debris in this valley between Carruthers and the Sentinel—avalanches in Australia scare me, but I’ll get to that soon.

But first, let me backtrack a few days, to when—after packing up the travelling circus and crossing the border into New South Wales—we’d detonated a gear bomb in the living room of Aaron’s shoebox two-bedroom apartment. He’d naively agreed to host us in Jindabyne, which is where we’d decided, mostly because of the weather, to head next.

We arrived at his place at 9PM, exhausted, hungry and, having not showered for five days, stinky. Aaron’s partner, Sarah, greeted us. And not only did she tolerate our garbage banter and in-jokes, she—angelically—cooked us a warm meal.

Around this time, we learned that local backcountry etiquette meant packing

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Parking the tents up top provided phenomenal views of the Sentinel and Main Range once the weather cleared

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You stop and think twice when you see an avalanche that’s taken out the entire snowpack down to grass

Dropping into Watsons Crags

Where to next, boss?

Rime-coated leaves sparkle like crystals in the sun

Lewis Foster in beast mode hauling five nights of (mostly unnecessary) gear out to the Main Range

A scary amount of snow and debris from the Sentinel avalanche out everything we brought in. And I mean everything. This includes human waste. I only knew the Canadian backcountry’s dig-and-bury method, so Aaron began offering instructions.

“So, you’re gonna need parchment paper, some plastic dog bags, and a dry bag each.”

“That seems like a lot,” I replied. “I’m not baking cookies; I’m taking a shit. What do I need parchment paper for?”

Aaron explained the four-step process that went parchment paper, into a bag, into another bag, into a dry bag.

“Do we really need a dry bag each?” asked Chris. “Can’t we just get one big one and share?”

In the end, we convinced Aaron to share one big dry bag. It was a bad idea. I won’t delve into it deeply, but let’s just say that three adults over five days produce a large amount of, well, surplus. How do you decide who carries that?

My other advice: Don’t cheap out on a dry bag; find one that won’t get a hole in it at the least convenient moment.

We regrouped with Divya and her partner Lew, a local shredder with much experience recreating in the range. The weather seemed to be on board with our plans for at least one day in the next five, so we headed out to the Western Faces, ready to roll cameras when the sun shone. Across flats and over bridges and then into a whiteout we went, with Chris and I following our crew blindly through thick clouds. When we finally reached the Western Faces, where the Main Range abruptly ends and disappears into the valley below, we looked out across the landscape and saw…nothing—nothing but the inside of a dense, white cloud.

The next morning, we were gifted with one of the most beautiful wakeups I’ve ever experienced. I’m not a morning person, but as we unzipped the tent fly, I laid eyes on the view we’d been denied the previous day. There was not a cloud in the sky; Carruthers’ north face had lit up. To our right, at the end of a knifeedge ridge, lay the jutted peak of the Sentinel. I was stoked.

Knowing we may have just one day of good weather, we followed Lew as he led us on a traverse which allowed us to hit Curruthers, the Sentinel and Watsons Crags one after another. On the way, we saw the chilling avalanche debris I mentioned earlier. But after an epic day, we made it back to the tent safely, where we celebrated our success with shots of whisky and lowgrade freestyle rap battles.

For the remaining few days, we were weathered out, forced to hunker down in our tents. Eventually we pulled the pin, bailing in the same fashion we’d arrived—navigating through a whiteout.

PHASE 3: MT FEATHERTOP

I often tell people the coldest I’ve ever been was during my Hotham seasons in Australia. My father was an Arctic bush pilot, so I’ve experienced temperatures cold enough for boiling water to freeze instantly, for your nose hairs to stick together on every inhale. Still, snowy winters in Australia feel colder. The moisture in the air cuts through your clothing to your bone.

I remember living in a small flat in Dinner Plain, paying way too much rent. Our house was so cold that we could never get warm; we cooked with balaclavas on and huddled on a small couch. One housemate never showered at home—who knows how long he went between showers. Now, however, I have been colder than that.

It was on the hike up to Feathertop. We found ourselves drenched to the bone, fully separated from each other, too cold to stop moving. I was so wet I had to change right down to my base layers twice. It was the closest I’ve ever come to hypothermia; the only thing going for us was that we had the comforts of Federation Hut, where we could light a fire and get warm. If this had happened on the Main Range, we’d have been toast.

Our gamble paid off, though, and we woke to 40cm of fresh snow. We’d actually done a reccy out here a month ago to check out conditions. They were not good; the mountain was falling apart. But now it seemed Feathertop had been given a facelift. The old glide cracks had filled in, and blue-tinted rime clung heavily to the rocks. It was like we’d been teleported from late September to mid-winter.

But that didn’t mean we were riding and skiing yet. Given we wanted to drop into some of Australia’s most consequential lines, which were layered with 40cm of new snow, we gave it a day for the new snow to bond. As I said, avalanches in Oz scare me. They may be less likely than in Canada or Europe, but when they do go, they go big. A low-risk, high-consequence situation. To make things worse, the layout of the terrain here increases those consequences. In Canada, backcountry terrain might be tight and technical up high, but then it deposits you into large open bowls; the snow, if it does avalanche, generally fans out. In Australia, we found the opposite. Terrain traps abound. Often large open faces are high on top, then funnel down into ever narrowing creeks. With nowhere for the snow to go, even small avalanches can result in very deep burials, and even if your friends get to you, there’s no guarantee you’d survive after getting tossed through tight rocky chutes or over snow gums.

The steep, complex, committing terrain of Feathertop’s southeast face; they call it Avalanche Gully for a reason

Point your axe over there—it will make for a cool shot

As I get more experienced and reflect on that day with Thomas, I find myself worrying about what lies beneath me for more reasons than just slides. A ribbon of enormous cornice lined Feathertop, and the terrain’s funnelling nature ensured that if it collapsed, wherever you were in the area, the cornice would find you. Conditions also changed drastically; a slushy face in the sunshine with plenty of grip could turn to a sheet of ice in minutes simply by having a cloud roll over. If you lost an edge, you’d go for a long slide, most likely ending by slamming into some pretty hard things. It would be nasty, and I found myself riding with ice axe in hand more times than expected.

We were once again, however, graced with luck; a melt-freeze cycle bonded the fresh snow firmly to the old stuff. When perfect blue skies eventually appeared, we cut three laps on the southeast face. We moved around like clockwork, found our groove, and now we ticked off a succession of bucket-list lines. It was a blast.

CONTRIBUTORS: Tim van der Krogt is a Canadian big mountain snowboarder; everything else he has tried to be has been derailed by an unhealthy obsession with mountains. Aaron Dickfos is a permanently stoked photographer based in Jindabyne, NSW.

Tim and the crew’s movie 36° South will be available to Australian viewers towards the end of June.

As I strapped into my snowboard on top of Feathertop, I thought of my 18-year-old self staring across the valley, dreaming of this line. It seemed unachievable. But eight years of progression brought me here. The thing was though, I hadn’t been noticing how every little step I took added up to one big leap. It’s not often you get to compare yourself through time.

But getting here didn’t come easily, and it didn’t come without challenges.

Backcountry riding in Australia is similar; it has its own challenges: testing snow conditions, difficult access, bad weather—it still blows my mind that our trip came down to just three perfect days, with only one in each location. So yes, the Aussie backcountry is not easy. Many experienced backcountry enthusiasts in Canada and Europe would struggle. But if you push through, you’re rewarded with incredible experiences in one of the most beautiful and unique mountain ranges on Earth. W

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