Hotham Magazine: Excerpts from the full version

REACH YOUR PEAK

I. LOCALS, LEGENDS & LEGACIES V. $4.4M IN NEW SNOWMAKING

II. FAVOURITE SLOPES & SECRET STASHES VI. THIS YEAR’S MUST HAVE GEAR

IV HOTHAM’S HOTTEST KIDS

VII. HOTHAM’S BEST RESTAURANTS

ANATOMY OF A MOUNTAIN

WORDS Anthony O'Shea

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“Slate, granite, schist and gneiss… the home of big mountain skiing and riding in Australia.”

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t Hotham is a state of mind. It’s also an incontrovertible physical fact, a place where a unique sequence of geological and environmental forces and factors have combined to create a mountain-scape and ski area like no other in Australia and few others in the world.

While the Australian Alps are, on the whole, defined by their sweeping high plateau and – ahem, clearing our collective throat here – let’s say undulant terrain, Hotham and its surrounding mountains stand apart. Our mountain home is a heaving monument, a massif of slate, granite, schist and gneiss, dramatic cliffs and couloirs, daunting pitches and jaw-dropping steeps, shaped by fire and ice and the elements, pristine, precipitous, and 6

more than 500 million years in the making.

Whenever we’re here, whatever we’re doing, the mountain itself constantly reminds us that this is a high stakes, high alpine environment, the home of big mountain skiing and riding in Australia. It’s a place of character and consequence, the soul of Australian skiing, a landscape that will bring out the best in the best of us, in any of us, but demands our respect and attention always.

You’ll know it when you’re walking home on a blizzard night through blinding sideways snow. Or when you wake to see a shaft of early sunlight striking Mt Feathertop the morning after a storm. You’ll know it when you’re standing under a cloudless, cobalt blue sky

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Clockwise from left: 01 Hiking the ridgeline. 02 White Sallee (eucalyptus pauciflora), here literally snow gums.

03 Above the clouds on an inversion day. 04 Rimed ice and snow. 05 The Hotham massif. 06. Puking!

in our mile-high village on an inversion day, with darker weather unfolding a thousand feet beneath you, an ocean of roiling clouds filling the valley. And you’ll know it whenever you’re clicking in or dropping in, turning down into the fall line or just getting your gear together for a day’s skiing or a hike beyond the resort boundary…

Every morning you’re at Hotham, whether it’s your first morning or your 500th, whether you’re learning to ski on Summit Trainer or tearing into Mary’s Slide, you’ll have a few butterflies in your stomach, perhaps a little catch in your voice or your breath, and that feeling only adventure brings: a trace of fear mixed in with the kind of excitement you feel when you know something good is about to

happen. And every afternoon or evening, as you come in off the mountain or toast the day with friends, that nervous smile you were holding in this morning is now a giant grin, and you can feel the mountain smiling with you, welcoming you in.

Don’t be fooled. The mountain won’t remember you in the morning, and those butterflies will be back again. But so too will that sense of place, the sense of grand adventure, the rush of gravity, the pursuit of happiness and, at the end of your day or your holiday or the season, a sense of accomplishment that will never leave you, memories you’ve made, and fun you will never forget.

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Tectonic shifts, continental drifts, volcanic eruptions and geological metamorphoses have all played a role in the creation of the Australian Alps, but ultimately it was the weather, and more than 60 million years of erosion by snow, ice, frost, rain and wind, that has carved the Hotham we know and love out of the Earth.

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Razorback and Mt Feathertop from the Great Alpine Road.

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BEYOND THE BOUNDARIES WORDS Buff Farnell PHOTOGRAPHY Andrew Barnes & Karl Gray

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first met Bill Barker some years back at Hotham. I was going cross country skiing to Dinner Plain with a Russian girlfriend and she had no cross country skis, so we dropped by the General Store at Hotham, which at that time had a ski hire and even a controversial independent ski school.

I walked into the ski hire and looked for staff. There was noone in sight, so I yelled out. Still nothing. I went downstairs to the bar and the bar guy said yep Bill’s up there in ski hire.

I went back in and looked over the counter and there was a guy asleep on the floor with massive long dreads, a worn out pair of Levis and Sorel snow boots with no laces. His name was Bill or bad boy Billy Barker and he became a best mate.

We skied around the world in Fernie, Red Mountain, Big White and Whistler in Canada, India, Europe and Japan.

We rock climbed together at Mt Arapiles and other crags of the world. Bill’s a solid bloke who I trust with my life on the end of a rope or watching me as I scoot down a fresh steep bowl of powder. We’ve always had each other’s backs when it gets wild, and of course we’ve skied a lot together at Hotham. It’s our home, we know her in a very deep and intimate way. We know where powder collects after a storm from the northwest, and we know where it all ends up when a southerly wind whips its evil way. We both love the whole experience of living up on top of a mountain and feeling the wrath of the storm, and then going in deep when the sun rises.

When I first met him, Bill loved parties. In fact, he may have loved parties more than skiing. Well maybe not, but he funded his survival at Hotham for the first few years with minimal work, winning Pool and Dart comps at the General Store so he could buy Beer and Bananas. I just skied. I tried not to work too much, just washed dishes, tuned skis at night and skied by day. Bill and I both skied for legendary Hotham photographer Andrew Barnes.

Barnesy saw us skiing, he liked our style so he asked if we could ski for his camera. We did, and we still ski for him now. It’s a beautiful thing when minds meet like that and we can get together after not seeing each other for a few years and it’s just unspoken: we know what to do, we both know what he wants when we’re a kilometre away on another peak and he waves and we ski down through rock bands and cornices; it’s a symbiotic ski art we share.

Now Andrew Barnes is a full-time Paramedic who shoots photos with us when he can. He also runs a website and Facebook page called East Gippsland Outdoors, beautiful nature photography and action sports. Bill is now head of Hotham Ski Patrol. And me? Well I still ski for film makers and photographers and do some light entertainment work with my buddy DJ Eddy.

Now this is not meant to be a potted history of our skiing at Hotham; I just wanted to set the scene. We came to Hotham for adventure. It’s a little harder to get to, it’s steeper than any other mountain in Australia, and it gets great snow.

That’s what drew us all up here. I’m sure it’s also why a lot of you guys come to Hotham. I know that because I clock your smiles after the first ride up Heavenly Valley on a fresh snow day. I hear you yelling, and I see your tracks.

Well not too many, because I like getting in first, but I’m 28

also happy to share the snow up here in the cathedral that is Hotham. We all get thirsty, and we all need water. It’s the same with fresh snow. And once it gets cut and squashed, we need to leave the lifts and head out into the mighty bowls and ridges of Hotham’s side country.

Hotham is unique when it comes to access into bowls and valleys: we start up high and then slide, the hike comes later. And unlike many areas, it’s better to hoof it out than use skins, just plug steeps, whether you wear snowboard boots or ski boots, to kick steps up the steeper ridges and bowls. It’s the most direct way and can be shared by all.

I remember skiing with Jeff Sweeney, the legendary big wave surfer and snow-wear designer for Quiksilver a few years back. We had come down one of the Two Micks, a classic Hotham cross fall line run with great wind lips and snow pockets. We finished our run in the Swindlers Valley and stopped for a breath and to look back up at where we’d just been. Jeff looked up and down the valley and said “Whoo, the soul factor is through the roof out here.”

Andrew Barnes laughed, and Bill and I just nodded.

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ou don’t have to go far out of the resort up here to get the feeling you need to wash off the grime and problems of everyday life. I remember so many days rising in the dark to my alarm and meeting with Andrew and Bill as we walked up the road in the dark with snow pelting our faces, only to drop down into the valley and find feather quilts deep of fresh snow and trees to give us definition. We would ski for hours with Barnesy yelling out into the wind for us to come in tight, or get air into a glade, or power into a pocket of fresh. Then we’d hike out and find it was 3.00 in the afternoon and we’d been in another world. Like I said in the intro to this story, Barnesy, Bill and I have skied all over the world. I’ve skied and alpine climbed in the Indian Himalayas, spent many winters in St Anton and skied in Japan, Canada and the USA. Bill now runs a guiding company in Gulmarg in Kashmir India called Bills Trips (funny name hey?).

Barnesy has skied all over the USA, toured through the Grand Tetons and Telluride and lots of backcountry in Australia, but I’m writing this because I think we all feel like Hotham is our home. Home always smells good, it feels right, and when it’s a place with such wild peaks and deep snow, I always have my best days here, the days I remember, the days I play over in my mind. It doesn’t matter if it’s spring and the snow has changed, or if there’s ice; it’s still wild and I’m glad I made the choice to come up into the big peaks and share some time with my ski partners and the friends I’ve made up here.

I only get to ski with Bill a couple of days each winter now because he has to run the ski patrol and make sure you guys are all ok when you tweak your body parts. Bill has everybody’s back now. And Barnesy still shoots through in his Suby when he can and we all get to shoot together. It’s still the same adventure; the mountain sits and waits and we ski. So if you see me on the chair out there, let’s have a chat and maybe ski a run or two for fun and Auld Lang Syne.

Best, Buff Farnell.

Previous Page:

Tells a story of Hotham’s

vast side country and

beauty. Skier: Buff Farnell

Clockwise from top left: 01 Buff in the trees with a

loaded beanie.

02 200cm+ in the Dargo

Bowl 1991.

03 "This is the reason I ski at

Hotham. I can escape."

04 Buff (left) & Bill getting

ready to go backcountry

in the years before socks.

05 "Love this shot flying

flowing down a steep

valley behind Davenport."

06 Bill Barker classic deep

Hotham fresh. Worth

hiking for.

HOTHAM’S NEW SCHOOL On any given day at Hotham, you can find at least one of these young star skiers and snowboarders bombing around the mountain, jumping and jibbing in the terrain parks, lapping the Rider Cross course or playing on the natural features for which Hotham is renowned. With an average age of 13½ and blessed to be born into Hotham families, we wanted to ask these guys and girls a few questions to get a glimpse into their world.

The following questions are taken from a scholarly article written by educational theorist Hugh Emerson in 1987 entitled “10 questions every parent should ask their child”, although we’ll admit they only came to our attention when they appeared in a more recent issue of Surfing World magazine.

MT HOTHAM RACE SQUAD - TEAM HOTHAM. Dedicated to the promotion and encouragement of competitive alpine ski racing. Team Hotham offer programs from the youngest Grommets, 5-7 years to Race Masters, 18-80 years. mhrs.org.au

HOTHAM SNOWBOARDERS INC. Not-for-profit SSA Pathway development snowboard club with school holiday and weekend programs designed around the core principles of snowboarding and having fun. HSi ride the whole mountain; park, powder, groomers as well as race training sessions for Snowboard Cross and G.S. hothamsnowboarders.com.au

MT HOTHAM FREESKI. Not-for-profit freestyle skiing club, recognised as an accredited SSA Elite Pathways Program. With world class coaches, the club specialises in slopestyle, Ski Cross, moguls, aerials and big mountain disciplines teaching skiers to become confident and competent in local competitions, Interschools, State and National events. mounthothamfreeski.com.au 39

B Backflip

HOTHAM ROAD GAP

On Sunday 19 July 2015, Hotham woke to a perfect winter sunrise. The darkness dispersed and the strong early season base gradually turned from deep grey to vibrant pink with the sun’s first light. The view over the valley towards Mount Feathertop was particularly striking. I was out early, shooting on the lower face of The Cross with my partner Liam and local legends Buff and Drew.

Little did we know that Hotham’s road gap legacy was about to be reignited…

WORDS Katya Crema PHOTOGRAPHY Mark Tsukasov

Bailey Johnson reignites Hotham’s road gap legend in 2015

HIS CHOSEN LINE Drew Jolowicz is the star of many of the skiing shots we’ve used in recent years on billboards, brochures, social media and videos. Drew, 33, was born and raised in Bright at the base of Mt Hotham and has been skiing at Hotham for almost his entire life. His parents were involved in the snow industry when he was young and Bright provided easy access to the mountains and lots of time on snow. Over the years, Drew has seen many changes at Hotham and more recently has had to overcome an horrendous accident that nearly ended his skiing career. Now skiing again, Drew knows as well as anyone where to find the best spots to ride on any given day and he can usually be found first in line as the Heavenly Valley chair opens early for first tracks. Michael Belfrage spoke to Drew about his skiing life, his motivation, and picked his brain about where to find the best lines at Hotham.

boot pack up to Wendix before dropping into Heavenly Valley. From there, I will usually head towards Purgatory Spur, Twilight Zone or the Canyon in search of powder! Once freshies become hard to find on Heavenly Valley, it’s time to move onto the extreme area, where runs such as Mary’s Slide, Lindsay’s or The Chute are next on the hit list! After two to three powder filled laps in the extreme area, it’s time to finish the morning off by heading over to Orchard/Keoghs in search of freshies on One Tree Hill.

Hotham’s marketing team got to ski Baldy Hollow with you last season, but you’ve been skiing this line with your mates since you were young...

It’s a great run! You can generally find good snow in Baldy two to three days after a snowfall. You can ride the ridge on the skier’s right, whilst the skier’s left offers a great fall-line pitch all the way to the valley floor. Baldy Hollow is situated outside Hotham’s resort boundaries and funnels down to the Great Alpine Road. To get back to the resort, you can either hitch a ride or bribe one of your mates with beers to sacrifice a powder run and come and pick you up.

We bet you know a lot of secret spots?

Ha Ha, I’ve got a few, but I can’t reveal them all! I’ve already given a fair few away!

There is no better feeling than going fast on skis!

How long have you been skiing, what are some of your fondest early memories of Hotham and what are some of the changes you’ve seen in the time?

I’ve been skiing for 29 years (wow that makes me sound old!). I can remember catching the school bus to Mt Hotham on school skiing days.

Mornings would consist of lessons and race coaching, leaving afternoons for free skiing (which usually meant building jumps!). It was great getting a day off school to go and ski with your mates.

You’ve skied all over the world. What other ski destinations have been memorable for you?

Outside of Australia, I’ve been lucky enough to ski in Japan, North America, Canada and New Zealand. In 2011, I spent three weeks heliskiing in the mountains surrounding Haines Alaska. Haines is a small fishing village at the top of Alaska’s ‘Inside Passage’. It can only be accessed by boat or seaplane and offers arguably the best big mountain freeriding in the world!

Hotham’s ski lifts and infrastructure have seen many changes over that time. However, Hotham’s amazing natural terrain has always been there.

The mountains there are renowned for receiving huge amounts of stable maritime snow that enable big lines to be skied soon after a snowfall.

Although skiing in Alaska was definitely memorable, it was also a huge learning curve. The weather can be highly variable, so you need to have time and patience. The size and scale of the terrain takes some adjustment (everything is bigger than it seems!), whilst managing ‘slough’ (moving snow) can also be intimidating.

What are some of your favourite areas at Hotham? Inbounds and out of bounds, groomed or hiking…

One of Hotham’s unique characteristics is there is terrain on all aspects, meaning you can usually find good snow somewhere. On powder days, areas such as Heavenly Valley and Gotcha are definitely the places to be.

When the sun is shining and the grooming is good, runs such as Snake Are the best lines always the hardest to get to, requiring you to hike?

Gully, Imagine or Race Gully are also favourites.

No, not if you have a helicopter! Ha ha, no seriously Hotham has some incredible side/backcountry terrain. With a little hiking or touring Mt Hotham also has some amazing terrain just outside the resort you can access some great lines. Generally a little extra effort will be boundaries. Places like Eagle Ridge, Avalanche Gully and Dargo Bowl rewarded with fewer people and more untracked snow. (to name only a few), offer great backcountry skiing, days after a snowfall.

How do you set goals when you’re pushing yourself in the side/ backcountry?

Who are some of the people, past and present, that you love skiing My goals and objectives have definitely changed as I’ve got older. with and why?

I tend to look for smoother lines and better snow nowadays. Skiing It’s been great getting out and skiing with Buff Farnell over the past few aggressively is still the goal, but I definitely place a greater emphasis years. Buff’s clean style and longevity in the sport is something I really on safety and being able to participate for years to come. Becoming a admire. parent has also changed my mindset. Knowing when to push it or tone it down is important.

Brad Watterson is another guy I really love riding with. Our powder senses seem to be the same! On the good days I can always find him Your daughter Madison recently turned 2 and tried her first pair at the bottom of Heavenly Valley waiting for first chair, and we always of skis this year, Will dad be teaching her or putting her in ski seem to end up in the same spots searching for freshies! school so he can go off and ride with mates?

Finally, when I get the chance, Tom Costa is another guy I love to go skiing with. Tom’s been one of Australia’s leading free riders for many years. His skiing is super smooth both on the ground and in the air!

Let’s say it dumped overnight at Hotham with perfect wind conditions, where do you head out for the best freshies?

When cold temperatures prevail, Hotham’s best storms have a northwesterly flow. A powder morning usually starts with a quick five minute

Madi loves the snow already! She had her first laps on the Summit Trainer last season (aged one at the time!) We weren’t sure if she would like it but as we went to leave she kept saying ‘more, more’. Learning the right technique is important, so I think we will put her in ski school.

It won’t be too long though before my mates and I are chasing her around the hill!

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The fateful drop, Drift Cliffs, 2012.

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Early light. Buff Farnell and Drew Jolowicz skiing Pink Hamburg in Hotham's side country.

To read the full articles, request your copy of Hotham's magazine via www.hotham.com.au/HothamMagazine

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