Feathertop 18/19th July 2015

[Lophophaps]

It is steep so make sure you can self arrest if need be.

Agreed. But it takes practice to know how to self-arrest. On a steep slope in that region the response must be immediate, as any longer and the speed is too great. Also, it takes only a few seconds to reach the trees or rocks. Avoiding sliding is best. With care and reasonable conditions, The Razorback and Feathertop are reasonably safe in winter. It may assist to assume that every slope will avalanche and that you may slip at any time.

[Hishy P]

image.jpg (41.68 KiB) Viewed 3092 times

Had a beautiful walk up to fed hut and out along the razorback.

we were careful and our tubbs had plenty of grip mostly, if they weren't falling in quite a few centimetres. It was tough on the legs actually. Biggest risk was not doing a wide berth truck turn when turning around and tripping over the snow shoes.

There was hardly any wind which really helped. Sometimes it was just still for ages. I can imagine it would add a deal of risk of it was blowing while navigating those razor ridges.

Didn't get to see the peak of feathertop and didn't try submitting it without the gear and experience, but visibiliyty was good a lot of the way between feathertop and mt Hotham, except for a few patches.

[paidal_chalne_vala]

Thanks for the pic.s. I will be up there next weekend (5,6,/9/15 ). We now plan to walk/snow shoe the circuit via the Bungalow spur, Mt FT, and on day 2 head out along The razorback and return via the Bon Accord Track. I can see some bald patches already appearing on the MT FT summit ridge.