Our Weather

Recently Tassie has had a burst of atypical weather (as has much of the rest of the country).
 
Tasmania has always experienced unsettled, wet and windy weather in Spring but this year has been exceptional with heavy late snowfalls and windy blasts that just seemed never ending.

The unseasonal weather is apparently due to a Sudden Stratospheric Warming event over Antarctica. This began in early September 2025 and resulted in temperatures 30kms above Antarctica spiking up to 35°C higher than normal. Part of the effect of this SSW is to push low pressure systems that normally circulate well south of Tasmania further north than they normally would be.

So it was a nice change to see a forecast for lower winds and clear skies. Time for a wander.

I was initially going to head west but the wind forecast still wasn’t promising there whereas central Tasmania looked far better.

Packing my gear I elected to include a warm sleeping bag and jacket as temperatures lately have been quite low. Little did I know......

Once I had climbed up on to the plateau I took a sidetrack to visit a hut built in 1983 by a fellow that enjoyed a bit of peace and quiet. He called himself Solitary Man and lived in the hut from January 1984 to July 1985. The hut is a small one roomed stone and sheet iron building, sitting nicely camouflaged in its surrounding bush next to a small alpine lake.

Leaving the hut to it’s lonely tranquillity I then followed a pad a few more kilometres to a small alpine tarn and found an idyllic grassy clearing nearby for my tent. The sun shone and a light wind kept most of the flies away. It really couldn’t have been better.

As the sun dipped towards the surrounding hills the warm evening light flowed across the landscape, lighting the harsh alpine vegetation with a softness of light and shadow while a distant mountain stood overlooking the head of the valley.

It was a pleasure to wander the area with camera and tripod, recording the warmth that flooded the valley around me. Evening slipped into night and it was time for sleep.

I had brought my Mont Helium 680 with me. A luxurious bag rated to -12°C for warm sleepers, it is perfectly suited to Tasmania’s cooler months. Ice crusted the ground and tent the next morning and checking my temperature sensor I was surprised to see that the temperature had dropped to -7.7°C overnight. That is remarkably cool for late October in Tassie!

I also had Mont’s new Helios down jacket with me. This jacket is the most technical insulated jacket that Mont has produced, with very high loft down and an outer shell that has a novel reflective layer incorporated into it. I can report that it worked wonderfully well and is perfectly suited to cold weather trips in Tassie.

My next destination was an off track lake only a few kilometres away so after a brief breakfast (brief because I had forgotten to pack breakfasts for this trip.....so a cup of coffee and a Clif bar it was) I packed my gear and made my way across the floor of the valley to the beginning of the climb up to the next lake.

Arriving at the lake, I once again found a lovely, grassy flat area for the tent. The sun was shining out of a mostly clear sky so leaving the camera packed I explored the area to search for images to be captured early the next morning.

As sunrise was at 5.59am I set my alarm for 4.30 am. I woke to a tent fully crusted with ice and checking the temperature......-9.1°C! Even colder than the previous night. The vegetation around me glittered with frost, throwing a thousand specular highlights back at my headlamp as I moved.

Sitting on a rock in the dimness while my stove boiled some water for the morning coffee, I felt no sensation of coldness thanks to the Helios jacket. It performs that well. Remarkable.

As the darkness was chased away by the dawn, I crunched across the ground to a spot I had scouted the previous day and I waited for the light, camera mounted on the tripod.

Two hours later, I had my now ice free tent and gear packed away and was making my way back through the bush in the direction of my car.

A perfect trip!

Gear used:
Mont Helios down jacket
Mont Helium 680 sleeping bag
Mont Moondance 1 FN tent

Geoff Murray
Mont Ambassador
@geoffmurray55