At the 2021 AGM there were four points to summarise the direction that MSC planned on going in 2022:
Continue to develop/strengthen existing relationships
Recruit Field Observation Team
Incorporate Digital Field Observation Plots to data sparse areas
Grow community engagement
From September 11-18 this year, the Canadian Avalanche Association (CAA) ran the first ever Avalanche Operations Level 1 Course in Australia at Charlotte Pass. 12 people were signed on, including ski patrollers from Thredbo and Hotham, backcountry guides, MSC ambassadors and more. It was a great privilege to join this group that is pushing snow safety forwards in Australia.
The first weekend of September 2022 saw a few hundred backcountry enthusiasts gather at Mount Hotham for the first in-person Victorian Backcountry Festival since 2019. A purely volunteer-run event, it ran over three days with a rolling schedule of backcountry tours, workshops, talks, short films, gear repairs and competitions.
It’s not often you hear a backcountry enthusiast hoping for more rain (Be careful what you wish for!), but this has been the case through July as we gingerly avoided an ongoing wind slab problem in the alpine. These conditions have been relatively unusual for Australia in terms of the number and frequency of avalanches and the conditions that caused them.
Three large avalanches were reported to MSC on Tuesday 28 June, 2022. The avalanches occurred in the Main Range of NSW in the Sentinel Peak area. For the purpose of this article we have named the avalanches as Sentinel 1, Sentinel 2 & Sentinel 3.
As we discuss in the conclusion, rain with warmer (+0º) temperatures creates stress on the snowpack and means it’s time to avoid avalanche terrain.
Here at the Mountain Safety Collective (MSC), we sometimes get asked “What does being a Not-for-profit mean”? At its simplest level, MSC is a registered not-for-profit which complies with strict Australian Tax Office (ATO) requirements to ensure that all funding is spent on providing services to the community, which in our case is the Australian backcountry community.
As part of our professional development program, Mountain Safety Collective (MSC) is pleased to announce co-funding of the first ever Canadian Avalanche Association (CAA) Avalanche Operation Level 1 (Ops 1) course to be held in Australia.
Snowflakes are just ice crystals stuck together. The recipe is very simple: One oxygen atom and two hydrogen atoms, add cold temperatures and you get ice. This seemingly trivial structure however is full of surprises, as no crystal is the same as another, ever!
Science differentiates between twelve different types of ice in our universe. On Earth only one type of ice exists, the one we all know and it can float on water. Ice on Earth has many faces: Ice streams at the poles, glaciers in the high mountains, permafrost, frozen waterfalls, snow, hoarfrost, hail, Jack Frost on the windows…
As reported on ABC News today (27 May 2022), the NSW NPWS has provided Mountain Safety Collective with $10,000 in funding to enhance the daily Backcountry Conditions Reports for the NSW Main Range.
Ski history would be very different without the influence of industry titans, Marker bindings and Völkl skis. Both companies started life in Straubing, Bavaria - Völkl in 1923 and Marker in 1952 - pioneering many of the innovations that we now take for granted in ski technology. We’d like to welcome their support for Mountain Safety Collective!