An ice climber is perched halfway up a frozen waterfall at the base of an amphitheatre of rugged mountain peaks. 

Beneath his feet is a precarious drop to an icy lake covered in thick snow.

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He delicately flicks the tip of his axe into the icy wall.

Pulling himself up, he kicks the crampon spikes on his mountaineering boots into the ice.

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It’s like a scene from the Canadian Rockies, the Swiss Alps or the Himalayas.

Except the climber isn’t overseas. He is ice climbing in Australia.

Back in John Pownall’s home in south-east Queensland, the locals complain about the cold when it drops below 10 degrees.

But here at Blue Lake, near Guthega in Kosciuszko National Park, for a three-month window in the middle of winter — providing the nights aren’t too warm and it doesn’t rain — water melting over granite rocks freezes into ice pillars sturdy enough to be climbed with pickaxes and crampons.

“It’s nuts that it’s so cold here,” John said.

“You look around and can’t not see snow. You wouldn’t believe it’s Australia.”

Ice climbing is a popular winter activity in the northern hemisphere, but it’s also experiencing a surge in popularity in Australia, particularly for aspiring mountaineers looking to skill up before travelling overseas.

And the most reliable site for ice climbing in Australia is Blue Lake — one of only four glacial lakes on mainland Australia.

Formed when glaciers carved out a basin in the granite bedrock during the last Ice Age 20,000 years ago, Blue Lake was a watering hole for grazing cattle until the national park was gazetted in 1944.

It’s since been recognised by the New South Wales government as a rare and unique example of a near-natural wetland.

As John hiked over the summit of Little Mount Twynam to stand above Blue Lake, the Brisbane local could hardly contain his excitement.

“I want something different,” John said.

“That’s the allure for me.”

John hiked around the Everest region of the Himalayas in 2014, falling asleep each night looking up at the jutting summit of Mount Ama Dablam and dreaming.

He promised himself he’d return to Nepal one day and summit the 6,800-metre peak.

But to summit peaks in Nepal requires experience with ice axes, crampons, snowshoes and mountaineering survival skills.

John was surprised to find beginner mountaineering courses in Australia.

“The nearest spot with snow is here,” he said.

“This is on our doorstep.”

John kicks into the ice wall with his crampon and starts to muscle his way up the frozen edifice.

“It’s a very unusual feeling to be trusting a couple of spikes in the ice to stand,” he said.

Below, climbing guide Jimmy Collins offers pickaxe technique advice.

“Flick your wrists just like you’re throwing darts,” he shouts.

“You’re trying to be precise. You don’t need a huge amount of power.”

Shards of ice shower down on the watching belay team as John kicks and picks and kicks and picks his way towards the summit.

“As a sender, I’ve got to tick the box. I’ve got to finish the climb,” he said.

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However, ice climbing isn’t just for the adventurous ‘sender’ — slang climbers use to describe those who summit routes without falling or resting.

Watching on from below as part of the crew belaying the climb is Avril Pullin.

She’s got an anxious, twisted feeling in her gut as she sizes up the icy wall.

Avril wanted to try crampons and snowshoes to see if this whole “mountaineering thing” was for her. Ice climbing was just a fun, unexpected addition.

“This is not my normal space. This is a very, very different challenge,” she said.

“I wanted to put myself out of my comfort zone and see if I could do it. Never in a million years did I ever think I’d climb ice.”

She’s seen snow just twice before — once as a kid in what she describes as “just a crap day”, and once when it snowed in London, dusting the cityscape in white.

“But that’s not really seeing the snow,” she said.

And so on what she considers her first “real” visit to the snow, Avril is in the Kosciuszko National Park back country, where there are no chairlifts, no crowds and no real sign of civilisation at all.

Here, among the snow-cloaked gumtrees, mountain peaks are the only skyscrapers.

As she sat at the base of the ice crag and pulled on her harness and crampons, Avril wasn’t even sure she’d give ice climbing a try.

But how often is one standing at the base of an ice wall in Australia?

She tied herself into the rope anchor and stepped forward.

“Once I got on the ice I wasn’t scared. The ice axes really gelled. It was just brilliant,” she said later.

“It was just gorgeous. I was blown away. The vastness of it. It is magnificent, and the whole lake is gleaming.

“Australia has so many things to offer, and so much of it is on your doorstep. It’s brilliant. I wish there were more places you could do it.”

Author of the Blue Lake Climbing Guide Brian Mattick said European immigrants moving to Canberra to work at embassies sought out the mountaineering adventures of their homelands and pioneered ice climbing at Blue Lake in the 1960s.

“You start looking around locally for snowy conditions and the only place in Australia really is the Snowy Mountains. We get reliable snow every year,” Brian said.

However, he said Blue Lake would never match the best ice climbing destinations around the world. 

The mountains are too small, the winters too warm.

“We just don’t have the winters to get really good quality ice in Australia,” he said.

And yet, Blue Lake has become a mecca for would-be mountaineers from around Australia desperate to climb ice down under.

Brian first climbed the ice at Blue Lake in the 1970s, using a straight, wooden ice axe he now describes as a “museum piece”.

It’s archaic compared to the ergonomic carbon fibre axes John uses to climb.

Everything has evolved — in the past, climbers wore woollen and canvas clothing, and carried heavy metal tools. Now climbers import Gore-Tex and synthetic down jackets from Europe.

“Ice climbing has changed over the last 60 years,” Brian said.

At only 1,890 metres above sea level, Brian said Blue Lake did not have the extensive frozen waterfalls of Europe to traverse, yet there was something about ice climbing that captured the adventurous imagination.

Rob Hofman knows well the captivating allure of ice climbing.

The Australian School of Mountaineering (ASM) lead alpine guide said the participants on his mountaineering courses were always blown away by the expansive beauty of the Snowy Mountains.

“People overseas are always so surprised there is ice-climbing in Australia,” Rob said.

“Even most Australians don’t know there’s ice climbing in Australia.”

ASM has seen interest in ice climbing increase from eight clients per winter a decade ago, to several eight-person tours heading out every season. 

“It’s a launching pad for young Australian alpinists who then move on to bigger mountains around the world,” Rob said.

Some clients are training to summit peaks overseas, some are just eager to tick off a bucket-list item, others are touching snow for the first time, while a few have flown to Australia so they can boast about having climbed ice on every continent on Earth.

The frozen banks of Blue Lake feel expansive, still and empty, like a land asleep.

“It’s a white, winter wonderland with rocky crags, with beautiful ski lines and ice crags,” Rob said.

“The number of people just over the hill at the ski resorts versus the number of people who come to Blue Lake and climb the ice — it’s quite a unique experience.

“You can go to Chamonix in Europe and see the number of people climbing there and compare that to out here and there’s no-one here in comparison.”

Wherever in the world he is climbing, Rob says he encounters amazement that Australia has snow.

“There’s an expectation of Australians that we don’t know how to ski or ice climb, so it’s good to prove them wrong sometimes,” he said.

“I’ve met a lot of people overseas in the mountains who don’t even know we have snow in Australia. When I say we can go ice climbing, they’re amazed.”

He’ll proudly share that Australia has more square kilometres of snow coverage than Austria.

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It’s not all blue skies and perfect conditions. The weather in the mountains can switch in an instant.

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Snow-cloaked gum trees shining blindingly under a blue sky can quickly become invisible inside the deadly white-out of a snowstorm, with temperatures plummeting and winds that seek out even the slightest gap between your clothing.

Ice climbers are in a constant battle with the conditions: the cold and the heat.

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To get to Blue Lake requires a seven kilometre cross-country ski or snowshoe, often lugging packs and sleds of gear, with exposed skin at risk of windburn or sunburn or frostbite — or all three at the same time.

But there’s another battle taking place too.

Rob has seen “huge changes to the amount of ice out there year-on-year”.

This year, ASM had to cancel two courses at the end of August – normally considered the best window for ice climbing in Australia — because of poor conditions.

It’s an unprecedented cancellation in the 30 years they’ve been running tours in the NSW Snowy Mountains and comes at a time when more and more people are wanting to experience ice climbing.

When ASM formed in the mid-1980s, the Australian winter ski season would stretch into October.

A report released in June by Australian National University’s Mountain Research Facility, commissioned by climate advocacy group Protect Our Winters, shows the length of the ski season has already contracted by a quarter across most Australian alpine resorts since 1954.

The report, Our Changing Snowscapes: Climate Change Impacts and Recommendations for the Australian Alps, says snow cover in Australia has also reduced by 30 per cent.

While there is no specific data on the ice levels at Blue Lake, the past two seasons have seen the window for ice climbing in Australia shrink.

“All it takes is one warm week and a rain event and that ice can completely disappear,” Rob said.

“If we lose this, we lose that stepping stone into the world of alpine climbing, making the mountains that bit more inaccessible for all Australians.”

When the season ends, Australia’s guides disperse and head overseas to climb ice in New Zealand and then Peru, Chamonix or Nepal during the northern winter.

But they’ll return, next year, with sleds full of back country snow camping equipment, snowshoes and pickaxes, hoping to find a frozen lake and some climbable pillars of ice.

Hoping to experience the thrill of an outdoor adventure many Australians don’t even know exists.

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Credits:

• Reporting and photography: James Tugwell
• Photography, video and drone photography: Jack Fisher
• Editor: Rachel Kelly