Cold Snap

Written by Mont Ambassador Geoff Murray

Recently Tasmania has experienced an extended period of cold weather thanks to a strong blocking high pressure system sitting off our west coast. This has resulted in Liawenee, Australia’s coldest town, recording 4 nights in a row at -10°C with a minimum recorded of -13.5°C. Pretty cold for Tasmania. The record lowest temperature at Liawenee is -14.2°C recorded in August 2020.

I thought this would be a great opportunity to give my winter sleeping bag, the Mont Helium 680, a thorough test. My bag is an XL size so it actually contains 780gms of 800+ loft duck down but the warmth for both bags is equivalent.

There is a lake a few kilometres north of Liawenee called Pine Lake, a picturesque lake partially surrounded by beautiful Pencil Pines. My plan was to walk over the ridge behind the lake and find a place to camp.

I set up camp in a clear area at an elevation of 1210metres, about 160 metres higher than Liawenee so hopefully a bit colder.

There was a copse of really nice Pencil Pines not far from my camp and I carefully balanced my way across the snow covered boulders between the trees looking for a worthwhile image. It was cooling down already, registering -7.7°C just after sunset so it was looking like a good frost was  likely. I was wearing my Mont Icicle Down Jacket which so faithfully kept me warm in Mongolia. In fact, I had the zip of the jacket undone and was toasty warm.

Once darkness had fully descended I returned to my tent, the Mont Supercell, and slipped into my sleeping bag. Opening my Kindle, I continued to read a book about a 5,500km journey that 4 fellows did down the Yenisey River in Mongolia and Siberia. An epic voyage from the mountains to the Arctic ocean in a  tiny boat. The book is a called Lost in Mongolia, highly recommended.

As I was expecting an exceptionally cold night and the Helium is rated for warm sleepers to -12°C I decided to wear some extra clothing to bed. I was hoping to see -14 to -15°C but unusually through the night the temperature bounced all over the place, always well below zero but definitely very unstable. Nevertheless, at 1.30am it did drop to -13.6°C before an obviously warmer and dryer mass of air moved in and by dawn the temperature had rocketed up to -4.4°C. Liawenee recorded -12.6°C.

I should have left the extra clothing off as I was always warm and sometimes a little too warm in the sleeping bag. A truly luxurious bag for Tasmanian winters :)

Geoff Murray

Mont Ambassador