November 18-21 2019. Possibly* the steepest couloir in Australia.
While New South Wales was burning, winter was making a brief resurgence in Tasmania. These falls, combined with the remnant snow surviving in gullies and shady aspects, meant that skiing was still a slim possibility on the state's higher peaks.
I'd been ogling the striking couloirs of the Du Cane Range for a while, but had never summoned the motivation to check them out. With free time, (semi) good weather and an already excellent winter that required capping off, I had no excuse not to head up.
I took the midday ferry across Lake St Clair in a howling northerly, and walked to Pine Valley hut where I stayed the night, listening to the rain ruin my snow.
On day 2 I headed up to the Labyrinth (using my kooky "floating-wedge" ski carry method to deal with the low branches), and climbed Walled Mountain in annoyingly deep fresh snow. The impressive chasm that splits the mountain was on my list to ski, but exposed rocks, a dodgy cornice and soggy snow kept it on my list. The slog up to the Du Cane highpoint was slow and tiring, so I rewarded myself with a lazy afternoon perched on the edge of the huge Du Cane Range/Geryon escarpment.
I awoke on day 3 to a nasty breeze and snow that was still unpleasantly wet. I skied a short but very nice little chute and traversed to the bottom of the Main Event: a deep, classically proportioned couloir that is more vertical than horizontal. The snow was fairly gross on the climb up, and while it sluffed a lot it seemed relatively stable. The very top was (legit) 60+ degrees, so side-slipping was the go until it mellowed out to 55-ish degrees for a while. My turns were pretty ugly with 80mm skis on mashed-potato snow, but genuine fun was had all the way down (although in proper winter conditions I could have added another 200 vertical meters). I used the remainder of the day to stomp back down to Pine Valley hut, then walked back to the ferry on day 4.
*Bold claim, I know. I'm sure there are plenty of minor lines on Feathertop and Watson's Crags that are way more gnarly and exposed, however, in terms of a sustained, "natural" line, I reckon this one takes the cake (purely in terms of steepness). It may have been skied before, I don't know. There are also several possible lines nearby that would be steeper again, but they look ultra-borderline, even in perfect conditions.
Music: Free Money - Patti Smith
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