Kosciuszko 2025: Australia's Rooftop at Sunrise

We drove up from Sydney on a Friday night and parked at Thredbo by midnight. The forecast showed clear skies for sunrise and a front moving in by noon — a two-hour weather window that meant getting moving before 4am.

The Kosciuszko summit track from Thredbo chairlift (not running at that hour) means hiking the long way — five kilometres up the ridge in the dark with headlamps and the temperature at -2°C. The snow gum forests at this altitude are some of the most unusual landscapes in Australia: white-barked, twisted, ancient-looking trees that have somehow survived winters that kill everything else.

The light came from the east and hit the fog surface with gold and orange — a quality I've only seen a few times.

By the time we reached the summit plateau the fog was sitting at about 2,100m, which put us just above it. The light came from the east and hit the fog surface with a gold and orange quality I've only seen a few times. I shot for forty minutes before the cloud rose and swallowed everything.

Eterna Bleach Bypass on the X-T50 was the right call for the cool blue shadows and warm highlights. There's a desaturated, slightly washed-out quality to this simulation that fits alpine light perfectly.