Category: mountain

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Campbell 2014 May. Tenting on top

Mt Campbell: Tenting on top. May 2014

The day was closing in as we reached the summit of Mt Campbell, mantled in mist, yet still visible – just. The climb had luckily only taken forty minutes to get to the top plateau from the car, but we’d set out far too late from home, and now time was getting away from us. I didn’t want to add the problems of failing light while I tried to pitch our tent in this raging hurricane with the wind snatching at loose flaps and trying to run off with the tent while I did battle to push poles through slots. The wind attacked noisily with every gust so it was impossible to converse. We quickly chose our spot. It seemed fine – no pointed rocks underneath, a bit of protection from a small cluster of pencil pines conveniently located near the summit cairn.

Sunrise next morning
“You get water while I pitch this,”, I said, thinking to maximise jobs done in the light. But then I looked at the thick mist encompassing us. No. Bad idea. Stick together.
“How much light do we have?” I asked, working feverishly at this stage at poking poles in the spaces designed to take them.
“Fifteen mins. Less in this mist.”
“OK. I really need to hurry. I don’t want to get water until this is up. Can you gather the water containers so we’re ready to go as soon as I’m finished.” Off we set together into the void that was not entirely unknown.

The mist had parted briefly to allow a tachistoscopic glance at a sheening that must be water in the direction in which we were now heading. Whoops. We’d gone about three paces when I realised that, although I knew how to get there, I may well not know how to get back if it completely closed in again, or got dark. Out with the compass so I could get a bearing on our current direction and thus have a back bearing for the way home. This was not a night to be out, lost without a tent. We were not heading where I expected to go, but I was sure the glint was not a mirage.

Early light on Cradle
By the time I had filled the bag and two bottles, spilling a little as I poured, putting my hand in the tarn for speed of gathering, my fingers were aching with a terrible pain. I wanted to stop halfway through the job, but I knew I needed to gather enough water so that if this tarn were a block of ice in the morning, we would still get breakfast. We’d keep this water in the tent near our bodies to stop it freezing.

Emmett, Pelion West, Perrins Bluff, and High Dome from our aerie
I boiled our water in the vestibule, and left the mixture to sit for the obligatory ten minutes while we took off our boots. All the outside jobs were now done. We could start relaxing. The wind’s roar was our background music. We like it. Our tent was secure. For now. Hopefully I’d done a sufficiently good job. One hears horror stories of people being blown away in their tent. As we huddled up the far end, getting ourselves into position for later, we had a giggle about what we were doing.
“You know,” I said, “I think a lot of folk might wonder why it is that two people who own a spacious house, a cosy open fire, leather chairs to read in, and 300 trees on five acres of land that overlooks a river would come out in the middle of a raging storm with a flimsy bit of fabric to protect them, munching on rehydrated ex-dehydrated food.” Bruce chuckled with glee.

Dawn light behind Rowland
Dinner had been very early, but I wanted to make sure all important jobs were finished before we fully relaxed. Now it was time for the evening’s entertainment, which, in this case, was provided by my husband, who read to me from a book Henry Reynolds wrote in 1982 about aboriginal-whiteperson relationships, looking at the inclusion of references to white people and their belongings that infiltrated various aboriginal languages right across Australia long before an actual encounter had taken place. This was very interesting, and kept us awake for a while, but then the horrible hour of going out into the storm to make sure our bladders were empty had arrived. Erk. Actually, the wind wasn’t quite as bad as it sounded, and at least it wasn’t raining. Yet.

I awoke at 11.30 as my body indicated it needed to go outside again. I told it it was delusional and rolled over. It became insistent. At 12.30 it won. As with last time, the sound of the fury was much worse than the actuality, although I did not linger out there! Back snug in my bag, I lay listening to the rage. This was precisely what we were here for, wasn’t it? To be a part of nature; to participate in its wild excess (but with safety – a kind of attenuated participation).
On the way up, I had realised that this weekend was the 49th anniversary, of the Scott-Kilvert tragedy which took place right in the area that we were playing in. Having written extensively about this, I am aware of all the details and they added force to the storm that was brewing around us. I decided I wouldn’t tell Bruce about this until we were safely out in case it put him off. As I lay awake, I relived some of the horrific details, and then pictured us in the morning, crawling in thick mist, buffeted by winds that wanted to lift us off the ground. Luckily I fell asleep before my imagination got any worse.

At 6.30, a somewhat enthusiastic voice awoke me.
“It’s lovely out here,” Bruce reported. That it was, and freezing too. We bulked up with multiple coats and four head-covers and more and went out to be part of the dawn. Already the reds and oranges limning Mt Roland were surprisingly vibrant. As the sun rose, we moved around from one vantage point to another – me photographing; he, melding with the dawn as he admired it. The mist had cleared, although the grey sky above suggested the day was going to be a gloomy one. We were experiencing the best it had to offer. From one position, I was excited to see Frenchmans Cap. It seems that every single high peak I climb, I get a view of this amazing mountain with its unmistakable shape. We were also excited to note that we could see the sea for about 20 of our 360 degrees; the sun lit it beautifully as it skipped across its surface.
We didn’t waste any time after sunrise, dismantling our tent, packing and descending once we’d breakfasted. As my key turned in the ignition, the first drops of rain fell. It got heavier as we drove sedately along, nearly crashing twice with speeding tourists who needed to ignore the 40 kph signs so as to hastily reach the lake and tick the box that says “Cradle Mountain experience”. At least there were no dead animals on the road yet.

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Bowes 2014 May

Mt Bowes May 2014
Entoloma rodwayii.

Mt Bowes is in the south-west, so it must, by definition, be a good mountain. As soon as I saw it on the programme I signed up.

Possibly Cortinarius levendulensis
The forecast was for a pretty dismal day – and yet fourteen of us turned up to brave it; I packed more layers and coats than for a summer’s multi-day expedition, and heaps of food in case the 4.30 a.m. start that I’d need to meet the others in Hobart at 7 would leave me more peckish than usual during the day. (It did. I was craving lunch by 10 a.m.)

Our track – not always as easy to see as this bit here! 

My mental image of what lay in store was, I guess, informed by trips to the nearby Western Arthurs: I imagined a lengthy phase of muddy button-grass plain ceding to alpine vegetation once we’d gained height. Wrong.

Having parked at the locked boom gate (en route to Mt Mueller) and swallowed the 500 ms or so of road to the cairn that marks the start of the pad, we entered the domain of melaleuca and leptospermum scrub, complete with requisite muddy pools of unknown depth to dirty our boots and gaiters. This section, however, was short – perhaps a kilometre  long – after which we entered quintessential Tolkien country, with sentinel Ents in every direction, fabulous guardians of the sylvan domains. The forest was very different to that of my normal bushwalking diet, which features huge myrtles and fatter trees; here the trees had quite narrow trunks. The bark underneath was invisible, as all wood seemed covered in a rich coating of vibrant green moss, with hairy lichen-beards hanging from horizontal surfaces. Colourful and abundant fungi were, of course, a distraction – so much so that we hardly saw our leader at all on the outward journey: he was too busy bowing obeisance to the fungi, his camera held in a suspicious position. Tannin-stained creeks, pure and gently flowing, were crossed by natural bridges made from fallen trunks.

I learned that this pad was originally the path cut by Edward Alexander Marsden in 1898, and is part of the original and much larger track going from Port Davey all the way to Fitzgerald – a very long distance – intended as an escape route for shipwrecked sailors. Snooping around the web, I have since picked up that the Port Davey track was used in 1914 to check out a rumour that a German submarine was lurking in Bathurst Harbour, intent on destroying troop ships as they rounded the coast. At that date, the track hadn’t been used since a 1905 shipwreck.

After many wonderful kilometres of this rainforested beauty, we were in a position to diverge from this path and begin the climb proper (still adorned with pink tape [mostly], but it was quite hard to find evidence of human wear on the ground). The quite steep rise was made more taxing by the presence of waist-high bauera and other bushes to keep us honest in our efforts. It took longer than I expected to reach the summit. Once up, we found a small depression out of the wind, which was necessary, as most of us had become wet from the morning of pushing through wet bushes plus the sweat generated by a healthy workout on the way up. Like a magician pulling rabbits from a hat, I seemed to amuse some by the number of coats and layers that I extracted from my pack to cope with the fact that we now had to stop moving. Like little Michelin men, we sat on top eating and looking at our hard-won view of half-disclosed mountains and a grey, moody Lake Pedder way below. The vista was tantalisingly full of promises that would not be kept on this day.

There she is at last: our mountain.
I must return when there’s a better forecast, as, even on a dull day with light sprinkle and smudged, detail-less mountains, it was magic. Just imagine what it could be if the sun shone and the mountains were well defined. I will be back!

Summit view

Beautiful quartzite on top
 
 
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Scott 2014 May

Mt Scott, May 2014

Darling mycena interrupta were in abundance here.
I continue to marvel at the number of times I can be introduced to a mountain whose name I have never heard of, just because it’s on the peak baggers’ list. So it was this week, when I received an invitation from friends who wanted to climb Mt Scott. I had to search to find it on the map, but yes, of course I wanted to come to add to my peak collection and to experience a new mountain; my friends had all gained the point for this mountain long ago, so were more interested in picking wild berries than in summitting, but that suited me fine. It gave me the opportunity to summit using my own devices while they picked berries, and I very much like to do my own navigating. My work obligations could be accommodated into the expected timetable for the venture. We were off.
A huge old myrtle (nothofagus cunninghamii)
We drove along roads that (at the end stage) are on none of my maps, and parked the car in what appears to be (map-wise) in the middle of nowhere. Because of this, I’ve given very thorough instructions on how to drive there at the end.
Native pepperberry bush, Tasmannia lanceolata

At the start of the walk, there is actually a little wooden sign with pink ribbon. From the sign, you head off into wet forest thick with lush ferns of many varieties, but there is a taped pad the whole way – albeit one that is sometimes hard to find. We lost it on a few occasions, but it is there. You just need to be vigilant, and to backtrack to the last tape if they run out in some direction.

Tasmannia lanceolata covered in moss and lichen

Somewhere around the 950 ms asl mark, the forest began to clear, and the vegetation became quite open. Some huge examples of ancient myrtles occurred in this more open section (nothofagus cunninghamii). This ceded to the next vegetation phase, a mass of wild native pepperberry bushes (Tasmannia lanceolata). I was entranced by the clumps of moss and thick coating lichen on each bush, endowing them with a sense of ancient mystery.

I gathered a few berries, but was more interested in seeing the summit, even though thick mist was going to prevent any view. David, who can’t eat berries, said that he wanted to get moving too, so the two of us set out along the logical route from there to the summit, chatting away whilst I kept us on the highest path between where we were and the top. We walked past a log book which is almost at the top of the very first rising, and I have heard it implied that that is the summit, but it is neither the summit on the map, nor the ground. It is nothing other than a visitors’ book and possible lookout point (I’d need to check that theory out in better weather). The summit (black spot on map) is at least 1.5 kms away. The highest point is actually on the knoll before that, but I wanted to touch the mapped and named summit.

Panellus longinquus Thanks Dr David Ratkowsky for helping with that one

Once the top, broad ridge line was reached (very shortly after the pepperberries and log book), we had over a kilometre of magnificent walking through almost park-like (non-taped, non-tracked) forest, which later became primarily comprised of thin-trunked melaleucas, pursuing the light. As I gazed at their tall, straight yet spindly trunks, I thought of Nietzsche’s question in his book,Will to Power (Der Wille zur Macht) where he asks: Why do trees fight to reach for the light? Is it for survival? No, he claims, it is because of a will to power (a will to dominate that goes beyond mere survival). These words have always fascinated me, partly, but not exclusively, because Nietzsche denies the idea of a soul, and yet implicitly attributes will to a tree.

We went over the rising that was not the official summit, but which my gps said was higher than the summit, down into a broad saddle, and up the other side, sadly leaving the forest for the final 100 ms or so to enter the first waist-high scrub for the day. It was very easily traversed, and there we were at the summit trig.

David, striding out in the parklike forest, discussing with me Einstein’s assumption that c was always constant. I like stimulating discussions on bushwalks.
There we ate half our lunch, waiting to see if the others were going to remain trapped by the spell of the berries, or whether they were going to join us on top. When they failed to appear, we set out back, but encountered them when beginning on the climb to the non-summit knoll in the forest. They were smug with their full containers of booty. We finished lunch together in the forested section as it was far more pleasant than the open, windy summit point, returned to the trig so they could touch it too, and then turned our venture into a circle by heading straight down the hill to intersect with the road far below and going along it to the car. This involved 17 minutes of road, with log trucks sometimes appearing. When I take my husband back there to show him, we’ll go out and back the same way, as that was the way of most beauty.
 
Entoloma sp
I arrived at work some minutes late to find my students deep in discussion about the budget that the government released the day before. They looked up and saw me in my boots and gaiters and outlandish walking gear (I had had no time to change) and smiled. I think they quite enjoy having a bizarre coach. They weren’t even fazed when I did a quick leech check on my calves while we went on with the next topic of discussion.
 
Below is a description of how to drive to Mt Scott.
I am greatly indebted to my friends, not only for showing me a beautiful mountain, for for negotiating the oddities of Tasmaps that fail to show roads. I have scoured our whole map of Tasmania, as well as  1:100,000 maps – both the one on which Mt Scott lies (useless, as it is right on the edge) and the map next door (St Patricks). Not one of those maps makes the road journey to this mountain clear. According to my gps, we had parked in the middle of bushland rather than on a road. If you look at the map above, the waypoint to the NW is where we parked the car. Because the road was not on the map, I also tracked our route as we drove out in purple so I could try to figure it all out later. But first, I will also tell you that the waypoint that is lower and mid-image is where we hit a road (unmapped as well – of course?). The dark blue line heading north and then weaving is the unmapped road on which we walked to return to the car.
After a great deal of screen staring and other map poring, this is what I believe to be the directions of how to get there. From Launceston, drive to Targa, and take the Camden Hill Rd. Turn left on the Diddleum Rd and join East Diddleum Rd, as described in the Abels I volume for Mt Maurice.
This road crosses St Patricks River. Now you need to pay attention. You’re getting near. After the river, keep heading north, and turn right at the third opportunity, now heading eastish. After about 1.5 kms,  swing right. If you look at the image above, you will see the change in the purple line from north to right (east). If you look very hard, you will see an orange darker line continuing north. That is East Diddleum Rd which you no longer want. After about 200 ms you can also see if you look above there is another road heading north which you also don’t want. You’re now very near. About 200 ms past this point you will (if you’re lucky) notice a small wooden sign that points to Mt Scott that has pink ribbon tied to it. If you miss it (we did) you’ll reach the remnants of a boom gate. Turn around and retrace steps for about 150 or so metres. The sign heads off on the northern side of the road. There are, of course, lots of other logging tracks – newly made pseudo-roads – to confuse. That’s my best shot at guiding you in. Good luck. It’s worth it.
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Inglis 2014 May

Mt Inglis. 6 May 2014

This is where I feel the start of the route to Mt Inglis begins – at the rocky part of Barn Bluff, where you first leave the track up to the Bluff, and start contouring around its belly instead.
Summit day for Mt Inglis delivered thick mist, but no rain, so off the seven of us set, some with more enthusiasm than others on what promised to be a very demanding day, and one that would be more of an endurance test than a pleasure if it began to rain again. Group momentum prevailed. I think I heard Rupert later report that his gps data indicated that we covered 23 kilometres with 1200 metres total climb – giving us a 35 ‘kilometre equivalent’ day. It was certainly a long one, beginning at 8.10 a.m. and finishing at 5 p.m. (later for some; I rushed the last bit to get out of the icy wind on the Cirque – and because I felt like a stride-out after all that goose-stepping).

The first (and last on the rebound) part of the route is on the track, firstly up to the Cirque and then part way up Barn Bluff until one hits the rocky face, when it’s time to contour, either on the rocks or a bit lower in the scrub. We began on the rocks, and everyone was following me on my route, so I stayed there until the rocks finished, and a scrubby spur led down to another cirque. The others voted for the scrub on the return journey, however. It actually took a fraction (just a couple of minutes) longer, but they preferred it to the slip factor of rock rubble covered in slime that was growing moist again, and were very happy with their choice. In the mist, we could see little, and I hadn’t had a good look at the map. I was silly enough to think that the next thing we climbed was Inglis. Ha ha. There was still a very long way to go and we were not yet half way there. We had been underway (not counting morning tea and waiting breaks) one and a half hours at this stage.

Pelion West dominates this particular view. Achilles lies to the far right.

Ahead of us lay not only our hill, but also a large moor area that looked fine from above, albeit rather expansive in its proportions, but which was a bit tiring in reality, as it required high lifting of the legs. The others were moving well, and when I stopped to fill my husband’s drinking bottle for him and then carry two packs, it took me at least ten minutes to catch them. I was sweating when I at last joined onto the tail end, just as we all began to negotiate the next patch of over-headhigh scrub that offered stirling resistance to our best efforts. Relief came when we happened on a beautiful patch of myrtle forest that was not only delightfully green but also open enough to allow easy passage.

Fury Gorge and the backside of Barn Bluff and Cradle as seen from the summit.

Up until this point in time, Mt Inglis had kept running away from us, and remained a matter of faith based on a belief in map accuracy. At last as we emerged from the myrtles onto an open table top, we could see the summit, although we were now too close to see the overall shape of our beasty. I never did see it as a whole mountain.

The group strides out; no loitering on this day!

Our turn-around time was now a mere 45 minutes away. Not seeing the height of the scrub that lay ahead and thinking the green was nice ankle-high alpine vegetation, I guessed at 20 minutes to the top from there. Another fast walker reckoned 30. Either way, we could do it if we hurried. Off we set as quickly as we could so as not to be timed out of our mountain. Neither of us was quite correct in our guesswork, but four of us were on the top in 24 minutes, and everyone was at the top before we all turned into pumpkins. We even got time to sit up there and photograph, survey the view and appreciate the sense that we had the whole world laid out before us while we took a rather hurried lunch break. The mist even obligingly cleared. It was truly beautiful up there, and, due to the vast stretches of low moorland separating us from the other mountains of our purview, it seemed as if we could see forever.

Looking down on Lake Will from the Fury Cirque on the rebound.

Again on the descent, everyone worked hard and well, and we made the rocky section below Barn Bluff in good time considering the terrain. It was getting dark quickly, so it seemed much later than it was, but the darkness rising was in fact due to the louring mist rather than the lateness of the day. Despite the freezing conditions, I think all of us were sweating from the toil. The wind was really beginning to rip up a frenzy and the temperature was dropping, but we also knew we were on target to be back before night fell. The wind was so strong as we hit the final tracked section that I started to get a headache, so dashed ahead to get myself out of it (with permission). As I cleaned my teeth by the tank after dinner, light sleet was falling: white drifting sago against the blackness of the night.

Icy path on the final day.
The underside of Hygrocybe schistophila

Next morning, the first words I heard were: “Be careful going to the toilet that you don’t slip on the snow.” That got me out of my warm sleeping bag; I wanted to see the sight of Waterfall Valley with a light dusting of icing sugar. Beautiful.

Ice floats on Kathleen’s Pool
I was lucky enough to go up the track first and thus got to follow the pristine line of white ice and snow crystals as I walked and photographed. I was amazed at how many animals make use of the Overland Track boardwalk! The only indentations offsetting the neat white grains were the quaint paw prints of quolls, wombats and wallabies. Fungi and fagus provided colour. What a great trip.
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Emmett 2014 May

Mt Emmett

We had not set out intending to climb Mt Emmett on this trip: instead, Mts Inglis and Proteus were on our agenda. However, the dismal weather forecast had us altering our plans. The worst day was to be our second one, so it was decided that we’d only go as far as Scott-Kilvert hut, behind Cradle Mountain, on the first day (instead of to the tarn on the moorland past the belly of Barn Bluff), and see just how much rain was going to fall thereafter before we finalised Plan B.

Approaching Hanson’s Peak, day 1

Day two was as bad as predicted, so the new plan was to climb Mt Emmett on this day, and then move to a better location for attacking Inglis the next one. 

 
En route, day 1

To the average person, Mt Emmett is not a name that means a lot. If you get out the appropriate map, you’ll find it sitting beside Cradle Mountain, minding its own business, looking nice and harmless as a bunch of smooth brown elliptical lines. When seen from the Cirque between Cradle and Waterfall Valley hut, it looks like a nicely rounded and gentle scree slope, much like many of the English Fells that you can dash up at a run. Before I knew better, I had once planned on sleeping on the top. 

A beautiful autumn bonsai Fagus plant on Hanson’s Peak

 Cradle from Hanson’s Peak
Unfortunately, the reality of this cozening deluder is that this is a mountain of angular boulder rubble, which could have been part of some story of angry gods throwing fridge-sized stone missiles at enemies and then cursing them so that they became covered in slimy black moss to destroy any approach efforts of hapless humans.

Twisted Lakes in autumn glory

We had already had one failed attempt on this mountain, admittedly due to snow (see my other Emmett entry: http://www.natureloverswalks.com/mt-emmett/ ) and I had not entertained the notion of taking my husband with Parkinson’s disease back there. My plan was to do it in summer on a nice dry day (without him), probably solo as this is not a popular mountain that anyone I know volunteers to do twice. However, the group was doing it in the rain, and my husband said he could do it too. Should a wife tell her husband he’s mistaken and make him stay behind for his own safety and the good of the group? (He laughed and said “Yes” when I read him that sentence.) “Not this time; not yet,” was the equivocating conclusion I came to after long reflection during the night as I listened to the insistent rain.

 

The moist mist swirled around as we left the hut the next day. We had elected to camp the previous night rather than stay in the hut, so were lugging a wet tent up the slope, but we love our tent, so that’s OK. I stayed at the back of the train, observing my husband’s progress, trying to read from his movement whether I should exercise some power of veto here. I was genuinely worried about this mountain – but again I let him have the call, not wanting to cramp his style with my own anxieties for his safety. 

Laccaria sp near our tent

Even highly competent and experienced walkers find Emmett with a water film over the slime to be a challenge (see rockmonkey’s blog) but we nonetheless set out over the slippery rocks that presented a line rather than a flat plane as their uppermost surface. I hoped that if Bruce ran into trouble, it would be in the first hundred metres to enable an easy exit. He seemed to be coping as well as some of the others in the group, and as he often goes much better if I’m not there as a backstop, I went on ahead, having fun crabbing my way on all fours across the slippery obstacle course, whilst checking behind at regular intervals to make sure he was coming, though the thick mist meant that, at best, I could see people who could see people who could report that he was progressing steadily.

Deceptive Mt Emmett from the Cradle Cirque next day

There were no commanding views to be had in the fog that day, but the best view for me was that of my husband approaching the summit of what I thought was his most challenging mountain yet. Bravo B. It snowed lightly (sleet really) before we began our descent. The weather was so bad I had not even bothered to bring my camera to the top; I have plenty enough photos of people in a grey, obnubilating veil labelled as this or that peak. 

Ramaria ochraceosalmonicolor beside the track

The trip down was as careful as the ascent had been and we all got there uninjured, picked up the heavy packs that we’d deposited in the Cradle-Emmett saddle, and made our way further on to Waterfall Valley hut where we could attempt to dry out our sodden gear before the next day’s demanding adventure (see natureloverswalks.com/mt-inglis/).