AAWT Winter Traverse - Episode 1 (Walhalla to Mushroom Rocks)

[@diamondmidnightgardener]

I stumbled into your videos in the 20's.... I've come back to the start to watch the whole lot... I'm addicted!

[@petej2533]

Best Wishes boys and Happy Birthday, we share the same month but not the same date. Have watch all your vlogs repeatedly and just love em. Hope your both well and enjoying life. Thank you for the hard work that goes into making the clips, Happy Birthday to Jen as well see I do watch and listen. Pete Johnson

[@MarkOates]

Many thanks Pete! Appreciate the comment and the wishes. Hope you also have a great birthday this July. Currently at Cradle Mountain & enjoying the mountain air here. All the best for your own adventures!

[@OneFurlongTooLong]

Great effort, guys! Huge admiration.

[@jayt.22]

I thoroughly enjoyed watching this. What an awesome adventure. Happy Trails! ⛰️

[@MarkOates]

Jay T. Thanks!!

[@Packraftexplorers]

Really, I didn't think there was gonna be so much snow in Australia. :D Will be fun to see a little episode of you two brothers over the next 34 days.

[@frozenragu]

Currently watching this in the shower; getting hyped for my bushwalk starting this afternoon from rumpff saddle to walhalla. After which I will have completed all of the VIC AAWT 😊

[@benspencer8783]

To mush rocks in one day…that’s a big day!

[@Compass424]

Hows the hyperlite packs go with ski edges rubbing on them?

[@MarkOates]

Sorry for slow reply. Have been away on a camp with students for the past 12 days. I just went and checked my pack and surprisingly the ski edges do not appear to have damaged the fabric too much. A couple of minor cuts but nothing significant other than the top stitching on one of the side pull-down straps tearing out (likely due to the pressure of the skis against the webbing). The latter is not really an issue though as there are many other stitching sections within the daisy chain so I have simply put a small amount of DCF tape over this spot. I have another HMG pack with the ski holsters but have found the holsters unnecessary. That said I have played around a bit with trying to improve the buckle system for skis so as to make it easier to attach them and secure them.

[@Compass424]

@@MarkOates Wicked thanks mate. That was the answer I was looking for. Might just be a case of putting some athletic tape on the wear spots as a preventative measure if I decide to invest in a HMG pack. Love your work. Cheers!

[@bicyclejack5448]

Hey how did the plastic skirt hold up

[@MarkOates]

Hi Bicycle Jack. The rain skirts are actually made up of dyneema composite fabric (DCF) and these ones are made by Z Packs. We used them below the treeline a fair bit and found them useful - particularly when pushing through very wet snow covered trees. There were times when we actually wore them over the top of our overpants just to help that little bit in reducing how wet we would get from pushing through the bush. Apart from a couple of small nicks they held up well and these were easily repairable with tape. They dont give you much protection from the wind so are not really suitable above the treeline in cold conditions but can work really well below the treeline. For winter trips I will always take overpants but outside of winter I'll sometimes just take the rain skirt. Hope this helps.