BACKCOUNTRY JOURNAL – Spring Mission To Feathertop
Scoping the line, looks the goods from there…
Backcountry Journal | Sam Leitch
Editor’s note: After one of the best winters in quite a few seasons, the backcountry is prime right now.. A solid snow pack, combined with some fresh snow last friday mean that conditions are as good as they have been for a while! Make the most of it and go for a hike, the beach can wait!
If you’ve ever skied Hotham on a clear day you may have noticed and lusted after gorgeous Mt Feathertop. Her peaks slap you in the face right as you get to the top of the Heavenly Valley lift. It’s her 1922 m south face with it’s massive hanging cornice, long steep couloirs and giant cliffs. Razorback Ridge, a few kilometres before the Hotham summit, snakes its way twelve kilometres to her flank. This Winter I really wanted to ski her in powder, however it wasn’t to be. The wind loaded Cornice was freaking massive and hung above all of her most beautiful features. I wasn’t skiing under that!
Earning those turns, it never gets easier!
By spring she had mellowed out. The high temps had withered away that cornice and the melt freeze cycle meant no powder but no slab danger. Corn snow it would be. It’s gorgeous but isolated once you get out there. Unlike The Alps that this mountain so resembles, there is no roads at the bottom of the couloirs. Just avalanche debris, hatchback sized chunks of cornice, and sharp broken snow snowgums, I needed a wingman.
Buff Farnell has toured out to Feathertop 17 times. He has skied and climbed extreme terrain all over the world, and to top it off he is really funny.
The knife edge.
There was a window of opportunity the week before the Grand Final, No DJ Eddy parties for us. We had three days of sun before a last storm hit just in time for the footy. We set off skinning over the Razorback ridge at 4pm Tuesday in bright sun. Our destination was Federation Hut twelve kilometres away. The Ovens Valley twinkled to our left. There was no wind and it was warm enough for butterflies. There was a sexy sunset and a bright moon rose, we could see Mt Buller in the moonlight.
After a while the skinning motion was seriously aggravating my right knee, I had to stop. I was determined to reach that hut, I strapped my skis and boots to my pack and put on my slip on vans I’d bought as hut slippers. I slipped and stumbled as our speed dropped by eighty percent. The trail narrowed and there was exposure to our right, I was cursing and Buff was cruising.
Checking out the local flora and fauna, A Bogong high plains moth.
By midnight we reached the hut, we went to bed and I prayed my knee would be ok to ski the next day. I dreamt of success and glory all night long. The next morning we stood at the summit. The weather was behaving, it was sunny with a light wind. Clouds were gathering from the west. The snow was soft and the south face dropped away beneath it. We had a thousand vertical metres of steep corn with cliffs to look forward to. My knee was still throbbing.
Buff dropped into Hellfire and soon disappeared, I was angry. As I sat there sulking the Costa brothers and snowboarder Kieran burst onto the Summit from the Falls Creek side, “Who is that? Is that Buff!?” they asked. “Yep” I replied, “We are gonna follow through there too then!” They dropped in and absolutely killed it, it was more than I could bear. Four other men had danced with my greatest desire better than I ever could, and one was a snowboarder!
Federation hut is a sweet crib, it was built after the 2003 fires.
After a fair while they climbed back out. It was really steep and I was right not to go too. Team Costa went back to their camp on the Bogong side. Buff and I went back to Federation hut in the late afternoon sun. Buff did yoga and I drank from a crumpled sack of Stanley (ed: nothing like some class in the backcountry).
Sam, nearing the summit!
The next day we walked back down via Bungalow Spur to Harrietville. It was 10 km and took four hours. We hit up some recovery vegie burgers at the shop and hitched back to Hotham. As my luck would have it, the day after that my knee was fine!
