A large and highly dangerous snow cornice usually forms along the summit ridge in winter and early spring, the collapse of which has claimed the lives of a number of people who have (sometimes unwittingly) stood on it or too close to it.

Mt Feathertop was sighted and named in early 1851 by Jim Brown and Jack Wells, stockmen from Cobungra Station.

[3] Forests of Mountain Ash cover the lower slopes of Mount Feathertop up to an altitude of about 1,000 metres (3,300 ft) where Snow Gums begin to dominate.

It starts at Diamantina Hut on the Great Alpine Road near the Mount Hotham ski resort and is relatively flat but is also very exposed during bad weather.

It was built for pack horses servicing the former Feathertop Bungalow and climbs gradually but continually for 9 kilometres (5.6 mi) until it reaches Federation Hut.

The Tom Kneen track along the North West Spur is a steep and hard climb starting near Stony Creek and reaching the Melbourne University Mountaineering Club hut after 7.5 kilometres (4.7 mi).

It offers great views of Mount Feathertop but climbs steeply (very in places) and involves some scrambling over loose shale.

The Feathertop Bungalow was built in 1925 and operated successfully as a 26-bed hotel for two years before problems with land tenure forced the owners to sell it to the railways at a knock down price.

After a few years of neglect the railways realised its potential and operated it successfully for a decade before it burnt down in the Black Friday bushfires of 1939 and was never rebuilt.

The hut was renovated and reclad in timber by Ian Stapleton in 1988, and destroyed by the 2003 Eastern Victorian alpine bushfires before being rebuilt in 2005 by Parks Victoria.

Victorian Minister Tim Holding disappeared at the mountain on 31 August 2009 when he failed to return from his solo hiking journey.

Graeme Nelson, a 56-year-old doctor from Eden in south-eastern New South Wales, a longtime regular visitor of the mountain, died on 24 August 2011 while skiing with friends in Avalanche Gully on Mount Feathertop.

[citation needed] Steven Galland died on Feathertop in 1983 when he fell whilst digging a snow cave on an MUMC trip.

[9] James Flitcroft was a European traveller who decided to climb mount Feathertop in September 1996 but died from dehydration, having forgotten to pack some water.

Mary (Molly) Ann Hill was with a group from the Ski Club of Victoria that was stuck at the Feathertop Bungalow during six days of poor weather.