Snow Camping Tips:

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Bring additional foam mat – the cheap blue ones – use for sitting on and/or under sleeping mat if you are a cold sleeper.

The little reflective silver sitting pads are great too – i use one of these with the blue mat and my booty is never cold when sitting on the snow.

Dig a footwell in your tent vestibule – this is the best trick ever, makes getting on and out of the tent heaps easier, especially if your like me, overly tall. Basically means you can sit inside your tent and put your feet into the footwell.

Use snow pegs – this place has them really cheap at the moment. https://www.fishingtackleshop.com.au/oztrail-aluminium…/

Bring and use pack cover – use this when you put your bag down to stop getting snow in it and also to cover it when snowing, particularly when your setting up or packing up camp.

If you use a gas cannister – put it on something to insulate it when using it, also pour some hot water over the cylinder to improve performance, particularly at the end of the cannister life.

Use drink bottle with hot water inside as a hotwater bottle at night, put a spare sock around it to keep it warm through the night. Absolute game changer for people with cold feet (like me). Also put water bottle into sleeping bag to warm it up first.

Bring Snow shovel. Build a camp wall, does two things, warms you up as you build it and provides lots of protection from the wind. Also make sure you set your tent up on a flat surface – nothing worse then sliding off your warm mat onto icy cold patches all night long :). Pick you camp site carefully to avoid wind and dead trees… but more importantly to get a great view when you wake up 🙂

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Sunrise.

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Its pretty awesome when you can roll outta your sleeping bag 35 minutes before sunrise is due to come up and stumble 5 mins to a epic tree.

Just a glimpse of the sun as dawn hit before the clouds rolled in and covered it all up… then rolled away.. then covered it up again..a perpetual cycle of this particular day.

5 shot panorama to really show this snowgum’s size. D750+24-70mm @ 27mm f/8 1/100s.

Kosciuszko National Park

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South Rams Head

Its been a few years since I have gotten down for a snow camp session, last year was an absolute write-off. So when my sister (Lorena Blacklock) said she wanted to go this year and it could double as a birthday present how could I refuse 🙂

I have been wanting to get back to this area on the slopes of South Rams head, and given its a fairly mild snow shoe hike up it ended up being perfect. The weather forecast was looking ok, also conveniently timed around the new moon so plenty of black night for astro if the opportunity presented itself and of course a location close to some stunning snow gums and the peak of South Rams head. Everytime i go to the NPWS office at Jindy, the lady asks me the same question, have you seen the weather forecast ? its like a trick question to vet those unsuspecting back country folk 😉 The wind forecast was not much chop, on the friday the place had been issued with a severe wind warning – thats no fun, but it was calming down with 25-40km/h winds, still could well be enough to make things miserable if one got stuck in that with -7C.

We made it up to the treeline and it was pretty gusty, and not consistent direction gusts either, like the ones that swing around 180degrees to mess with your head as you try and find a nice camp spot 🙂 We did find a pretty nice spot that seemed fairly sheltered and with a nice view (that is pretty important:) ) It was snowing a bit and a bit windy still and the spot was on a fairly decent slope – enough that when I put my camera down and it went for slide half way down the hill 🙂 it still works so no new camera for me 🙁

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Snowgum.

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There is no where else in the world where you will see Eucalyptus trees (gum trees) covered in snow other that in a few select areas of Australia. These areas have diminished and the number of trees been significantly reduced over the years, particularly by bush fires which have occurred in multiple years decimating them (circa 2003). Note these species of trees, unlike some other gums, do not need fire to activate the reseeding process.

There is some good news tho, they do appear to be recovering and hopefully the coming generations will see these (Eucalyptus Pauciflora) growing back to magnificent sizes like this grand snow gum on the southern reaches of Rams Head.

I love this tree, its just on the lower side of the treeline at about 1900metres and has such gnarly curves and colours. This was a bit after the sun had come over the hill and after a night of nice snow fall.

#Kosi #kosciuszkonationalpark