Being up at Mt Hotham for the school holidays, there was plenty of time to activate the remaining couple of summits in close proximity. The Twins was my first target and needed a good day. That day appeared on Tuesday 10 July with a forecast of light winds and clear skies. There has been plenty of snow this winter and so The Twins Jeep track had a good snow cover all the way to the Great Alpine Road.

The winter closure gate (about 1km from the Great Alpine Road)

My wife kindly drove me to the start of the jeep track (there being nowhere to park nearby). From there it was straight on with the skins and a steady climb. I followed the 4WD track to the base of The Twins and considered heading straight up as I’d done when hiking. However, there’s quite a bit of fallen timber in the lower areas that would have been tough to negotiate in skis (or even carrying them), so I decided to take the longer and flatter route along the 4WD track around to the saddle between The Twins and VE-023. This is a long ski! 

The saddle below The Twins

I eventually made it to the saddle and headed on upwards towards the summit. The snow cover was complete, but there were quite a lot of obstacles (branches and rocks mainly) that made skinning difficult and so I decided to ditch the skis and boot pack (kicking steps in the snow) the rest of the way. The snow was around knee deep most of the way which made walking manageable. 

Looking to the lower of the peaks on The Twins with Mt Tabletop (the flat topped one) in the background

I finally made it to the summit to great views and a smooth, knee deep snowpack. It had taken just under 3 hours to skin and climb the summit (about 7km). This was quite a bit longer than I had planned and meant there wasn’t time to activate VE-023 due to the short available daylight.

Close up of the operating position and the end of the antenna. Ice axes make good pole supports!

I set up the station and got on the air just before noon. Propagation was OK with 40m pulling in NSW, SA and Queensland, 80m for a couple of local contacts and 20m for NZ and some more Queensland stations. A total of 11 contacts well and truly qualified the summit.

I stopped for a bite of lunch and then quickly packed up and headed back down the way I came – I found that it’s actually faster to walk down a steep snow covered slope than to hike down in summer – you don’t have to watch where you are placing your feet nearly as much and you can just stride straight down (at least if the snow is soft and deep)!

Coming back down the ridge line with VK3/VE-023 behind

I picked up my skis on the way down and walked back to the road just below the saddle. Here I put the skis back on, still with skins on, and headed back along the 4WD track. I had been hoping to ski back along the road without skins, but the snow was really too rough and lumpy to make that work and so it was easier in the end to just ski along with skins on to control the speed on the downhill sections.

I finally made it back to the car in just over 2 hours. On this hike, I again used my APRS tracker and found it to work well given the proximity to the VK3RHO digipeater. This allowed my wife to work out exactly when to come an pick me up!

Here’s a few more photos:

Twins Jeep Track under snow

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Mt Hotham

A few days later I decided to knock off Mt Hotham as a quick early morning activation before my daughter competed in a moguls event. This is a very easy activation in winter – take the summit chair to the top and then skate out to a suitable operating spot. I was on the chair as soon as it opened at 8:30 on another beautiful clear day. I skated to about mid-way between the main comms tower and the fire tower where there is a convenient pole line to attach the antenna to. Mt Hotham’s summit is quite flat and the activation area is very large.

It didn’t take long to set up the station and I was on air at 9:10am and had 10 chasers logged in 20 mins. The usual mix of locals on 80m and further out states on 40m. I didn’t hang around as I had to get back to the lodge to drop my pack and get back out to the moguls event by 11:00. So a quick activation making Mt Hotham my most activated peak with six visits so far. Here’s a few photos to remind you what it’s like.

Waiting for the Summit lift to open

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