Sommaire pour Issue 171, May-June 2019 de Wild

Nick had captured our imagination with his idea: An exploratory canyoning expedition to Tasmania. We were sceptical. I mean exploration, don’t you need to have a sponsorship deal to be an explorer? Have backing from National Geographic? Or some sort of explorer’s certification? Besides, with humans stretched out on every extremity of the planet, is there anything left to explore? But there was a logic to it. While explorers have long headed to the highest peaks or longest rivers, canyons have been viewed as nothing more than obstacles. No one seeks canyons, except canyoners. And—while numbers are growing—there are not a huge number of them in Tasmania. Perhaps first descents still awaited. And so it was on Boxing Day that Nick, myself, Jin, Josh, Gab and Jess found ourselves in…

Along the southernmost coastline of Western Australia’s South West lies a string of beautiful inlets, three of which are particularly special for kayakers: Nornulup, Walpole and Broke Inlets. Fed by dark, slow rivers flowing out of old growth forests, these inlets are quiet and inspiring. Here you can paddle down bubbling waterways while breathing in the scent of eucalyptus, and then stretch across wide waterways that lead to challenging coastlines. And after paddling the serene waters, you can camp among grass-covered golden dunes near the inlets’ mouths, where they enter the sea along a spectacular wild, lonely and windswept coastline. It’s unspoilt and remote; Hush Hush Beach and Lost Beach are aptly named. Much of the area is protected wilderness, only accessible on foot or by boat. Nornalup, Walpole and…

The simple reality is that making something waterproof is both super easy and super cheap. You need look no further than the humble—but utterly waterproof—plastic bag. Get a big bin liner, cut out holes for your arms and head, and voile! You’ll have a perfectly waterproof garment that will keep the rain out and that will, cost and weight-wise—outperform any jacket out there. Not keen on looking homeless? A plastic poncho will do the same thing. However, once you start moving, your body heats up. Just as that waterproof bin liner stops rain getting in, it’ll also stop heat and sweat getting out. You’ll quickly feel like you’re in a portable sauna; soon you’ll be as wet as the rain would have made you, only now it’s from perspiration. Ick!…

Lighting in the great outdoors has historically been a case of owning a stable of illuminating devices and then choosing one, or several, to take out with you on each trip depending on the outing at hand. A head lamp. A camera flash. A bike light. A multi-purpose hand-held torch. But in recent years that’s changed, a by-product of the surging popularity of digital videography. Videography—at amateur, prosumer, and pro-levels—made it apparent there was a need for an ultra-lightweight, constant-beam light source suitable for taking into the field. In response, in 2016 Litra (pronounced “light-tra”) launched its Litra Torch as a Kickstarter campaign. The unit was originally designed as a video and DSLR camera attachment. But then, (and I can’t resist this) the light switched on (ha ha). What worked…

Stephen, Kristy and myself started out on the Eastern and Western Arthurs Traverse, arguably one of Australia’s most iconic, beautiful and difficult multi-day walks in January 2019. After getting up Moss Ridge (a real doozy with mud, roots and fallen trees) we headed for Federation Peak, taking the Southern Traverse to get around it. Carrying a 17kg pack and looking down 600m to Lake Geeves below me on some sections of the descent was absolutely amazing. This photo gives some idea of the overall exposure on that Traverse. Coming down, my knees knocked like Elvis. Andrew Taylor, Brisbane, QLD Andrew wins an OSPREY MANTA AG 28, valued at $239.95. Designed for lightweight day or even overnight hiking, the Manta includes Osprey’s LightWire frame, mesh backpanel, BioStretch harness and AG hip…

The other day I was bitten by a bull ant. I was out with my son in the Royal National Park. He’s five years old now, but we were out on, for him, a longish walk—a 13km out-and-back jaunt beyond Uloola Falls. While it’s not an especially difficult outing, it’s not dead set easy either, especially if you’ve got short legs; there are ups and downs, rocks to clamber over, thigh-tohip high steps to contend with. It was one of those gorgeous Sydney autumn days. A flawless, hard blue sky. Warm enough that I sweated a little on the climbs. And the air was stripped of haze; when we reached the walk’s high point near Uloola Turrets, we could see each skyscraper in the distant CBD with perfect clarity. I…

When the northern monsoons have made their way across Bunuba Country in the Kimberley region of Western Australia and the goannas start to get fat, the Bunuba Rangers wait for a bright, yellow flower to appear on sandy river banks. The gilini plant (Sesbania cannabina) heralds the start of a season known to the Bunuba people as girinybali. In girinybali, water abounds. Country is active and alive. Plump bambarri (freshwater mussels) are plentiful, and the mighty balga (barramundi) start their annual migration upstream to permanent waters. But the flowering of gilini is more than an indicator of seasonal change. For thousands of years, Bunuba people have dried the stems of gilini to make gunggali (traditional fire sticks), which they use to burn patches of their country in girinybali. They call…

Baffin Island had always been a place I felt like I needed to visit. To climb, for sure, but mainly just to be there. To experience the remote wildness of an arctic wonderland of alpine spires and some of the most impressive granite big walls on the planet. I teamed up with Alice Ng and Jeremy Roop and after much scheming, days of delayed flights and over 350 kilometres of hiking, we made it happen. In a place with notoriously fickle weather we were blessed with a month of near-perfect conditions. It allowed us to climb four routes: the South ridge of Mt Menhir, the South-East ridge of Mt Loki, Chocolate Boomerang on Tirockwa wall and the Scott Route on Mt Asgard. With no helicopter access and little chance of…

Every cubic metre of air in the Northern Territory’s Top End contains roughly 8,132 flies. I know this because I am in it, at ground level and 160% humidity, the flies feeding on the sweat of my face and arms and legs, with the backs of my hands and the tops of my thighs already blistered by days of sunburn. I’ve seen this place before at 1:500,000, down off the Reynolds River 4WD Track and another 100km east towards the no-horse settlement at Grove Hill. But then it was all academic, studying the map back home with anticipation and thinking, “Ah 115km isn’t too bad for a day.” But that was the map, and as Polish scholar Alfred Korzybski’s famed dictum states (perhaps more literally in this case than he…

Think of Switzerland and you think of mountains. Big mountains. Grand, soaring massifs, lacing the entire country. And you think of snow; no other nation is as obsessed by winter sports as Switzerland. But while it may be better known for its ski resorts and wintery pursuits, in summer the country becomes—to use a cliché that in Switzerland’s case is hard to avoid—an adventurer’s wonderland. Hiking, mountain biking, trail running, paddling, canyoning, climbing and mountaineering: once the snow melts, Switzerland offers seemingly limitless possibilities. In many regions, tourists in the warmer months now outnumber those visiting in winter. And little wonder—the country is almost unfathomably beautiful; one of the greatest difficulties confronting visitors is not stopping to take photos every hundred metres. Postcard-perfect vistas abound. Nestled between the massive snowcovered…

Since the brand’s inception almost a decade ago, Hoka One One has become almost synonymous with innovation. What started out as an attempt to make downhill trail running faster, smoother and more enjoyable led to a reinvention of the running shoe. All you need to do is look at a shoe from Hoka One One to know it’s a different beast—the significantly increased cushioning and the efficiency-boosting rockered soles are eye-catching. Now the company is expanding into hiking footwear. Three styles of boot—collectively falling under the banner of the Sky series—are being launched in Australia. All three have either Vibram soles or lugs, and all are lightweight. The Toa is a mid-cut day-trekker with a plush rubberised EVA midsole. Inspired by Hoka’s running shoes, it’s fast and light and designed…

I’m confident that what I build is among the best in the world. Z-Packs, Gossamer Gear, Mountain Laurel Designs—these names might be familiar to those who closely follow the evolution of outdoor equipment, but others more used to browsing their local outdoor store’s well-known brands may be left scratching their heads. Well, the times they are a-changin’. The last decade has seen a slew of independent, online-only US cottage manufacturers—like the trio mentioned above—producing a new wave of innovative ultralight gear. But while the trend may have started Stateside, Aussies have our own crop of homegrown sewing heroes. In a one-room workshop above a carpenter’s studio on an industrial estate in Campbellfield, Melbourne, I enter the lair of Evan Howard, owner and sole employee of Terra Rosa Gear. His workspace…

Stepping out into the predawn darkness, crunching across the icy remains of last night’s hailstorm, we picked up the rocky trail that led away from High Camp, shining head torches upwards into the mist. A threehour climb away at the end of this snaking, skinny ridge sat Mardi Himal, small and squat beneath the towering fishtail peak of Machhapuchhre. After dark hours of airy, rugged walking we finally caught up with the sun, topping out to eyeball a stunning range of oh-so-close snowy peaks: Annapurna South (7219m), Hiunchuli (6441m), Mardi Himal (5587m) and Machhapuchhre (6993m), all lined up to create one of the best Annapurna vistas you can climb to without crampons. While Machhapuchhre—the sacred peak of Shiva—waits patiently for the climbers who will never come, Mardi Himal attracts no…

There can only be one moment like this. There will never be another one quite like it. Even if the opposite was true, I’d choose to forget all other moments, for this. This simple moment, when the clouds lift and the mountains appear, as if a magician has conjured them up from the grey, heavy mist. Sprawled out before me is a landscape that’s older than the wheel, and much older than me or my memories. It’s the Southern Ranges, in all their glory, with swirling mist highlighting a series of peaks, and the hundred colours of the sunset reminding me of the latent wonder of Tasmania’s Southwest. It’s been three days since I’ve seen anything other than the belly of a cloud, which swallowed me a lifetime ago. Now,…

In the northeast of New South Wales lies Guy Fawkes River National Park. Rugged and secluded, the park is dissected by wild and scenic rivers, and offers superb opportunities for bushwalking. However, while the park’s east—where access is easy and there exists an established network of walking trails—is relatively well-known, the park’s vast western reaches are rarely visited. Most walking is off-track, and the park’s western boundary is abutted by private land; access can be difficult. As a result, the spectacular, steep, gorged country is a largelyuntapped and isolated wilderness. The Aberfoyle River flows through the heart of this wilderness. The off-track loop walk described here provides a relatively direct route into its rugged valley, making use of a narrow corridor of public roads and old trails completely contained within…

Few materials used in outdoors gear production have proved as enduring as Fjällräven’s proprietary G-1000 fabric. But the fabric, which has now been used by the company for 51 years, almost never made it off the cutting room floor. Fjällräven founder Åke Nordin had previously considered using the cotton-polyester blend fabric for a tent but had decided it was too heavy. However, after a Fjällräven-sponsored expedition to Greenland returned complaining about the lack of durability of another company’s outerware, Nordin decided to reconsider using the fabric, this time for a jacket. There was one problem, though—water-resistance, or lack thereof. Nordin thought back to his days as a ski-jumper. He remembered waiting at the top of the jump, where he and others would not only apply wax to their skis, they…

In 1923, a young Bavarian cobbler called Lorenz Wagner decided to break free of family tradition: He would no longer merely repair shoes; he would make them. Lorenz—and his two brothers Hans and Adolf—had been virtually born cobblers. His father Johann had been one; so too his grandfather. Together, Lorenz, with his father and brothers, worked out of the family home in Jetzendorf, a small rural town in the low rolling hills north of Munich, Germany. Back then, cobblers were as ubiquitous and necessary as auto mechanics are today. Nearly everyone in Jetzendorf walked to work; day-labourers, woodworkers, brewers and farmers. Lorenz and his brothers grew up travelling into the fields to repair the shoes of farmers, carrying with them their tools of trade. It was hard work, often requiring…