Mountain Safety Collective Backcountry Conditions Report – Friday 20 June 2025

Mountainwatch |Mountain Safety Collective

Welcome back to MSC’s weekly backcountry conditions summary that we’ll be publishing on Mountainwatch exclusively every Friday.

We had a fantastic start to the season on the June long weekend with around 60cm of snow across NSW and Victoria to start setting things up. If you’ve visited the daily Backcountry Conditions Report, you’ll see we’ve been using the term “Early Season” frequently. This period is characterised by a snowpack that’s variable in terms of depth and surface quality and hasn’t completely covered obstacles like rocks, creeks, fallen trees and bushes yet. As such, it’s important to be stepping out cautiously and assessing conditions as you go.

It’s important to note that the first large snowfall has been followed by consistently cold temperatures over the past two weeks, meaning that the snow has stayed relatively dry and unconsolidated. This has meant that lower altitude approaches have been very unsupportive with lots of collapsing through to bushes. On popular touring trails, this is mitigated by staying on established skin tracks that have compressed the snow down and provide more stability.

Daytime temperature fluctuations have also seen a widespread breakable crust form on the snow surface up to around 1900m which has made skiing back down through the trees particularly difficult. You may need to carry ski crampons for early morning ascents.

It’s a better story in the higher alpine above 1900m, where strong winds have packed the snow into a more supportive state and extensive pockets of windblown snow have provided great skiing this week. Be aware that this windblown snow has created windslabs on lee (Easterly) slopes. The avalanche pictured above on Mount Tywnam is an example of this where windblown snow has accumulated on a harder bed surface and released when a skier with the appropriate skills intentionally tested it before skiing the slope.

The weather forecast for the weekend ahead is superb, with clear skies, warm days and light winds. Make the most of this before we see prefrontal rain on Monday ahead of some new snow through the middle of the week.

If you’re in the mountains already, join MSC for the Alpine Education Series in Jindabyne and Bright over the next couple of weeks. MSC’s Membership Drive is also running with some fantastic prizes on offer.

You can keep up to date with free Backcountry Conditions rReports every day by visiting Mountain Safety Collective.