Australian Alpine
In Kosciuszko National Park, New South Wales, the highest mountains in Australia rise to 7,310 feet. Ryan Tiene, Jason Robinson, Nate Johnstone and a crew of documentarians spend a week camped out in search of big lines is Ozlaska.
“K-O-S-C-I-U-S-Z-K-O… Kosi… Kosi-osko?” Jason Robinson is sitting next to me in the passsenger seat as we fly through the graceful, yet decidedly hairy, sweeping bends of Australia’s most iconic mountain road: The Alpine Way. Ryan Tiene, Nic Harvey, Nate Johnstone and I – all locals – are trying in vain to contain our laughter as he attempts to sound out the syllables of the park’s name with his distinctive Montana drawl. He shouldn’t feel too bad about it though, our own government misspelled the name on the entry gateway back in 1967, and didn’t change it until someone pointed out the error some 30 years later.
We are going to ride Australia’s biggest terrain. In particular, we are chasing a peak off the western limit of the Kosciuszko National Park named the Sentinel – or, as we know it, “Ozlaska.”…