all words by Huck & Dyno,ย photos from ski.com.au
One thing is certain โ when I say that the slope is over thirty degrees โ thatโs steep! And when a thousand feet of that slope is dropping below you with maybe rocks and ice down there you donโt ponder too long about the prospect of falling.
– Alan Andrews
When you get down to it, Australia is the flattest driest continent on Earth. By definition, the skiing here is the worst in the world. The only place you might come close to arguing is worse is Africa โ and I hear the Atlas Mountains in Morocco are pretty big. So itโs easy to write the place off as a land of sunburnt sweeping plains. Or, if youโre a skier, patchy cover, ice and crud, short shallow runs and snowmaking.
Australian resorts areย world leadersย in snowmaking!ย World leaders!
Even the highest mountain, good old Kosciuszko, is a hill with a road to the top.ย Just look at the Wikipedia picture. Awww. The very first time I ever went XC skiing, we made it to the top! Snowboarders were drinking beer up there! Fun for the whole family!
The enthusiastic might even bother to look over at the โMain Rangeโ, hoping to see a craggier peak. But nope, Mount Townsend and Northcote and Lee all look pretty tame over there. Maybe a cool little bowel kinda hidden below Carruthers Peak.
But then one day youโll bother to climb the second highest peak, Mount Townsend, and have a look from the top of there and…
…HOLY CRAP
So begins our investigation into the gnarliest lines in Oz.
Carruthers Peak
Remember that little bowl just visible from the summit of Kosciuszko?
Oh, thatโs cute.
Turns out thereโs some great runs there, proper chutes and everything! The one right in the middle is ruler-straight fall-line bliss, and even has a cool name: either theย Widowmakerย or theย Elevatorย depending on who you talk to. Both are descriptive and I canโt really make up my mind.
But still looks more like fun than death.
Donโt worry, we havenโt looked at the north face yet.
โฆMore like it
This was marked up by someone on the ski.com.au backcountry forum (Probably VSG, that guy loves his Photoshop). The blue line, from Andrewsโ description, is probably calledย Ericโs Funnel, after Eric Eisinger, a ski instructor at the Charlotte Pass Chalet. The red line isย Middle Gully. The green line is unnamed as far as I can tell.
But whatโs that opposite this face? An actual PD+ ski mountaineering objective?
The Sentinel
Even the prolific Alan Andrews didnโt want to touch this north face.
The most obvious line on this gem of a peak is the south face, also known asย The Fridge Runย because people tend to stick pictures of it on their fridge for training motivation.
The Fridge Run, showing the pitch. The Avalanche Alley area is in the background.
Thereโsย a bloody excellent videoย of a guy snowboarding this thing on youtube.
The South Face/Fridge Run was actually first skied in 1951! Richard Raubitsheck wrote:
After a few turns on the extremely steep slope, I suddenly realized that I was caught in a surface avalanche. This carried me down some 300 feet before I was able to extricate myself and run out of the still moving stream of snow.
The Sentinel does have a reputation for sliding โ when James Morrow ofย Ozbc.netย and his mate tried the North Face in 2008,ย they also triggered a wet avalancheย and had a lucky escape.
Yes, itโs gnarly.
And thereโs lines on the SW side that havenโt been skiedโฆ
But, overlooking the Sentinel, we now come to the most impressive piece of mountain in the state of NSW.
Watsonโs Crags
โฆanyone feel like going to the beach instead?
That thing in the middle is theย Center Chute.
A more expansive view.
The Centre Chute would be the first unlabelled red arrow from the right. My mate, Liam Filson, has dropped into the third unlabelled red arrow from the right, and climbed out the way he came. Crags Creek has also been skied, all the way down into the valley.
Lower down in Crags Creek
Itโs the kind of instantly mythical place that breeds rumours almost as an afterthought. The Centre Chute gets skiedโฆbut by who? The NZ Alpine Club used to train for Mount Cook here. Glen Plake once did a top-secret heli drop.
Whoever these guys are, they got it in the conditions of the decade.
But the fun doesnโt end on the south face.
Gnar.
James Morrow, Mark OโConner, and Brian Wilson dropped into this monster in 2011, for probably the most notable first descent Australia has seen in a while. Straight from the, err,ย forumโs mouth:
โฆsome impressive sluff management at the top of all shutes & some impressive chunks of debris that had fallen off cliffs above rolling down with sluff. I got caught in a cliff band at the bottom of the second pitch which seemed nearly steeper than the top & I could tell there was a good drop as I could hear the goolies whumping as the sluff sailed over the edge. SB went lowest and could see the side of what looked to be a good 5m band so I was glad to stop a turn or 2 short leaving me a horrid boot pack out with digging my hands into snow, sinking up to above knee & my helmet brim hitting the wall of snow in front of my face with each step. Then crampon over to the next gully to join B Wilson & SB for some relief up the last 40m of their boot pack track followed by total melt down at the top.
โฆ.The top section of this run is definitely the steepest pitch i have skied. Made Carruthers north look very flat the following day.
Epic, straight up epic. Hereโs the view from the top:
Phaaaaaaark
Someone on the forum said it reminded them of the rock climbย Tourettesย up in the Blueys, because when you look at it you just start swearing.
Blue Lake
After that, another mere cirque is going to seem kind of tame. But we still have Australiaโs premiere remnant glacial landscape and ice-climbing venue, Blue Lake. The lines here are helpfully labelled from Ozbc.net.
Itโs bigger than it looks. Also note the large avalanche in the background.
The Amphitheatre boasts one of the biggest cornices around, and, sadly, Australiaโs most recent avalanche death. Tom Carr-Boyd was standing near the top of the cornice above Amphitheatre 1 when it collapsed, triggering a huge slide that ran out nearly 50m onto the lake.
He was buried 3m deep. You can read aย very emotional accountย from a climber who was nearby and first to help in the search. Iโm going to start calling Amphitheatre 1,ย Tomโs Chute, in memorial as a reminder to carry a beacon and stay further away from cornices than you think.
Amphitheatre 2 has been called theย Avalanche Gullyย because it always seems to have debris at the base.
Remember, no-one bothers to carry beacons in the Australian backcountry. Because it doesnโt slide here!
Just before the Amphitheatre, we haveย Stag Gully, a line so steep, rocky, and narrow itโs actuallyย a rock-climbing routeย in summer.
Doing it with this much snow seems like it should be cheating.
A very ballsy spot to take out the camera.
Then finally we have the โeasyโ option ofย Glissade Gully. Oh hey, thatโs me.
Measure the angle though, seriously that is 45+ degrees at the top.
But I can hear the Victorians complaining already. The Main Range is flat! What about Mount Feathertop? Buller? Bogong? Tune in soon for Part 2: Victoria.
(Read more great Australia snow articles by Huck & Dyno here: ย Huck & Dyno)
(editorโs note: ย We want to send out a special thanks to Huck & Dynoย for giving us permission to share this article with you. ย We had NO idea there was terrain like this in Australia and weโre eager to hear more. ย We will have a reporter in Australia this year who will be creating weekly conditions reports to keep us informed on whatโs going down Down Under.)
Certainly not a first descent
I want to shreeeeed!
If only it looked like this right now… I really wish I would have brought my backcountry skis now
Whoa.
Very cool. Thanks Huck & Dyno. Oz mountains have new meaning.