Category: tasmania

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Alma 2015 Jun

Mt Alma. 4 June 2015

The lookout towards King William I, Pitt and Miligan as seen from the highway, not too far from where we started.

 Dark shapes appeared out of the mist as I drove towards the Western Tiers, heading for my render-vous with my HWC friends at Derwent Bridge. The skeletal forms of wintry trees floating in the mist were very beautiful, but I had no time to stop for them. As I expected, the bends on the Poatina road would rob me of the extra minutes I had allowed. 10 kms/hr was all I dared as I negotiated sharp turns of pure ice. The land up top was white and perfect, but again, I had no time to spare. I just had to admire it as I continued on my way. I’d left half an hour early, but was perhaps now running a little late.

Looking towards Mt Rufus as we drove to our destination.

Phew. There they were waiting for me. Now we could proceed further towards our goal, Mt Alma, on the other (northern) side of the road to Frenchmans Cap and along past the car park to where the main southern spur from Alma intersects the highway. Our mountain from the road was, as is often the case, a matter of belief in maps rather than something we could see for certain. She lay back there, up there somewhere.

Part way up the first rise

Up we climbed in good spirits brought on by a new adventure, through the frozen grass that melted and saturated when it came into contact with our warmer bodies. The views back towards Frenchmans were splendid, especially as we were lucky enough to have wisps of clouds below us and a snowy white beret on the famous French gentleman.

The white-bereted gentleman himself

After morning tea at the first hilltop, we dropped, past fascinating rock formations to a saddle, from whence the final climb began. The going was slow, as the bush in this section became quite dense. It seemed odd to climb up from grassy slopes into thick forest. On this particular day, every time you bumped a bush, it threw snow at you.

One of many fascinating rock formations on the first section of the climb (before we dropped to the saddle).

Already we could see and feel the day changing and clouds were rolling in. Unfortunately, by the time we reached the summit and got to picnic and enjoy the fruits of our labour, the interesting detail in the landscape had all but vanished and outlines were smudged; pleasing lighting effects were nonexistent. I didn’t even bother to photograph the summit, and stood for lunch, preferring not to eat sitting in snow. The trip down was very quick indeed. I think everyone wanted to finish the mountain’s work before the rain began. The views on the way up were definitely the climax of this mountain.

That bend where we parked the car is the second bend after the Frenchmans Carpark, but if you can’t read maps well enough to locate it, please don’t climb this mountain unless you are with a club. There is no path to guide you. You’ll see that we went beyond the “black dot” marking the mountain on the map. That’s because where we went was the highest point on the mountain, but we visited the black dot as well, so as to say “hello” to both points. Quite frankly, the lower black dot was a more interesting place than the highest point, and offered what I thought was a better view.
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Mother Cummings Peak 2015 Jun

Quamby, Drys and Projection Bluffs from the top of the climb
Mother Cummings Peak. I have a friend who believes that disappointments come in threes. Unfortunately, I’d used up four before I’d even reached the plateau at the top of the Western Tiers, but that’s OK. Surely it meant the rest of the day would be fantastic – which it nearly did, except that disappointment number five was awaiting me at the end of the journey. Here are the early ones:
(1) My car bounced like a kangaroo up the southern outlet, most unwilling to participate in a day’s jaunt in the mountains. This boded ill. Once up, however, she took off, so I picked up hope.
(2) She then stalled three times in the Deloraine carpark after I’d stopped, and a fourth time about a hundred metres down the road. I limped quietly back, abandoned the unfaithful beast, and climbed into a friend’s car. My Kia could remain a problem for the end of the day.
(3) And maybe you think this shouldn’t count, but the scenery was absolutely magic as we sped along the route west out of Deloriaine: white, heavily-frosted grass; a magnificent pure white mist rising above it; photogenic, dark cows peppered here and there to give foreground interest; an indigo Quamby Bluff rising out of all this for grandeur and contrast behind. It was perfect, but I was no longer in my own car, so had to let it go. I still mourn the loss of that “photo that got away”.
(4) I had come armed with my macro lens and was even carrying a light tripod, but it was so cold there were no fungi at all, so my disappointments mounted. Up the track though the rainforest we went, having fun despite all these setbacks.

Admiring the view

As we crested the plateau at the end of most of the climb, we were treated to a delight, so I decided I needed to do some sort of subtraction on the list above. In that crisp, clear air, all outlines were sharp and beautiful. You could see countless surrounding bluffs and peaks with wonderful clarity. Perhaps even better was the cornucopia of artistically frozen tarns with white rings and stripes, all sparkling in the beautiful sunlight. Changed by the sun fairy into tiny children, we played on the tarns, seeing which ones would take our weight (fortunately, all of them). I changed macro to wide angle, and played away with my camera as well, always happy to be going “click”. The Scotts Road had been an excellent starting point: we were at the top in less than an hour’s walking time (not counting play time). If you count the distractions of beauty, who knows how long it takes? It was so early we couldn’t even have lunch on the summit, and had to wait until the next peak, alas.

One of many icy tarns

Dining on said next lump, listening to banter flying to and fro and enjoying the dramatic drops and cliff lines, soaking up the fugacious rays of warmth piercing bravely through the sharper ambient temperatures, I felt deeply contented. I looked at my watch. The time was good. We were now at the furthest point from the car. The rest of the route looked easy. I would get to work on time despite not having my own car for a quick getaway.

Unfortunately, disappointment number (5) reared its ugly head as the journey continued and continued, the party making slow progress through the glorious rainforest in the final kilometres of our journey. There was nothing I could do about it, but I became quite distressed, knowing my students would be waiting for me and that I was letting them down. I hate letting anyone down, but especially my students. At least when I finally reached my abandoned car, it started without a murmur (or jump) and bravely sped me to my destination. I dashed into the room of nicely dressed people in my muddy boots, filthy gaiters and torn pants. My students didn’t bat an eyelid, being used to seeing me in odd attire, no doubt. Instead, they greeted me with a hug, glad that I had managed to get there at last, albeit late. I love them all.

Phil on the northern hump, with Ironstone behind

Route notes: via Scotts Rd. From Meander, head south along the Meander Falls Rd until you come to a right hand fork labelled “Scotts Rd”. This leads to the Scotts Rd Lookout (fine view). The end of the road and the start of the track is just beyond that. The bushwalking forum does not discuss this route (not that I could find), and the Tastracks’ offered routes (two of them) do not present this as an alternative: they suggest coming via Smoko Ck (beautiful) or Western Ck – also nice – but this route is fast and efficient, if getting to the top quickly is your intent. Very old maps call the southern, bigger lump “Cummings Head” and the lower, more dramatic northern one “Mother Cummings Peak”. In fact, if you want to say you’ve climbed Mother Cummings Peak and you’re talking to a pedantic peak bagger, then you need to have climbed the southern (higher) one. We climbed both for good measure, but the northern one was for fun – well, they both were, but the northern peak was a “pointless” and “Abel-less” peak, done purely because climbing things is enjoyable, whether or not they’re on someone’s list or worth a point in some motile and relative list of points to be accumulated.

So, we parked at the (Scotts) road’s end and ascended by a clear path to the peak. From there, as you can see, we headed north. There is a path that goes via the valley, but our intent was to avoid dropping that far, and to head cross country and north over higher ground to a point where we eventually joined the valley track as it ascended once more to go to the former summit, now “pointless” (but dramatic and photogenic) hump.

Boys playing on ice

From that northern hump, we descended on a clear track to the east of a stream, as per map, until we hit a road, which we followed to the east, until the waypoint, which is the point at which it stopped. From here, we made our way cross country, consciously gaining contours to reach the obvious shelf, but not climbing it straight up. This was not hard going. If you are doing this route, my advice is to stick near to the steep ground on the right when on this shelf, using it as a navigational handrail, until you intersect the track and follow it left to your car. My route was outvoted by the others, and we spent a lot of time floundering around in flat swamp, knee deep in muck. We saved a bit of distance but lost a lot of time. (My blue lines don’t meet to make it clearer where the car was.)

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Liffey Falls 2015 May Fungi

Liffey Falls – mostly fungi. May 2015.
Mt Bobs seemed a pretty unwise destination when it looked as if every tree in the state was trying to uproot itself, and when the car could barely stay on the road, struggling against the force of crosswinds. Having seen the forecast in the week before, we cancelled our intended expedition (again, oh woe. Will I ever get to see this mountain? This is the fourth cancellation). The attacking rain that accompanied the ferocious wind made the decision easier to bear. Instead of Bobs, my husband and I chose the much tamer alternative of fungi hunting in our local area, and went to Liffey Falls.

There we found abundant fungi, and there was even a rather flooded waterfall at the end.

Coprinus sp I presume. As you can see, they were present in abundance.

I have labelled this mycena firma. Hope I’m right
Hygrocybe miniata is my best guess for this one
Mycena interrupta. No need to guess for this one.
I’m pretty confident this is Russula persanguinea
This is a singleton of the group below, but I haven’t identified these yet
And yes, at the end of the fungi display was the waterfall, beautiful as ever. 

I have also included some shots I took on our way home from climbing Mt Littlechild. Our return route took us via Lilydale, so it would have been churlish not to pay these Falls a short visit. Our courtesy was repaid with a sighting of three giant cortinarius archerii specimens, fresh out of the ground and shining in their joy to see the world (see pictures under a separate LIlydale Falls blog)

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Sedgwick 2015 May

Mt Sedgwick, May 2015

Hoorah. The summit of Sedgwick.
“Look, there she is. Would you like to stop for a photo?” Mark’s voice was hopeful. I saw the dull, undelineated shape, the murky veil that still robbed the rocks of detail, and lack of foreground interest. Surely there would be a better view of our mountain than this.
“Na. I’ve got summit angst”, I said as I pressed on. “I promise not to have summit angst on the way back down. We can stop if we see the mountain then.” Poor Mark. We never did see the mountain again, but really, we never did see it the first time either.

More summit – I didn’t stop to take photos on the way up, such was my determination to actually get there before the weather got any worse.

I would love to say that climbing Mt Sedgwick was a case of veni vidi vici. That was certainly our intention. However, the actuality is that the veni bit was very easy; vidi was just about impossible all day; and as for vici … well, after a bit of stuffing around in the first hour, yes, vici took place, but was not at any point assumed before the trig loomed nice and close in the thick mist that enshrouded the mountain that day.

Summit again – various angles. I’m sure there is a view out there

Before I begin, I must say that we are indebted to LWC for doing the spadework of negotiating with John, who drove us through CMT property at Queenstown, and to the General Manager of CMT who allowed it. We wish John the very best of luck in his continuing establishment of a Tour company in the region. It was our intention to attack Sedgwick from the south, and we had permission to do it: a huge bonus. Even with making a couple of errors getting started, and walking an extra 1.3 kms, some of which was in thick bush, we were at the top in three hours’ elapsed time – about 2 hrs 40 walking – and descended, knowing what we were doing, in two hours (walking time, with one photo stop extra).

Luckily I love rocks in mist 🙂

Unfortunately, I had a few stray waypoints on my map that made it confusing to know where the best point to leave the track and forge a way up the spur was. (On the way back down it was patently obvious.) Things didn’t quite match what we had been led to believe, but once we were on the quite narrow ridgeline, everything fell into place. Then, the only perceived difficulty that could arise was the fact that we could see nothing, so might possibly choose an unsatisfactory route up the top that would land us in a cul-de-sac cliff face. It didn’t happen, but neither of us counted this mountain as bagged until we saw the cairn.

This was the nearest we got to a view all day. Mark was very excited by it. It hints at possibilities.

It was very cold on top, and it was a bit early for lunch anyway, so I only ate half a meal so we could get out before even worse weather closed in. The clouds were on the move, and rain was forecast for the afternoon. The wind had gained in force. Down we went, hoping to pick up our route from the ascent pretty quickly. We wavered a bit but then found it, along with a helpful wire that we had found on the way up (forewarned about this by LWC). Once the wire finished, we kept on the point of the spur and the going was pretty good, all things considered. When the bush thickened up further down and the ridge became less defined, we actually found a very old pad, with faded and sun-damaged pink markers, and a definite tread line on the ground. This pad was not quite on the spur, but ever so lightly to its east. We followed it until it emerged onto a road which is not on the map. Below is a map of our descent route. I wiped the ascent one, as it would not be helpful to anyone planning a route.

Man (Mark) and his views.

If you get permission to go this way, head up the spur (north) on the unmapped road. When it finishes, you’ll find a cairn, and to the right (we hung a bit of old pink tape there – if it lasts) you’ll find the narrowest of former pads. Small it may be, but being on it saves heaps of time and bush bashing!! I hope you get the view that we failed to see.

The whole route, from where we were dropped off to the summit, first following an old boggy former road of a deteriorated sort and then the spur (more detail below).

 

Map showing the route from where we left the road to go up the spur. The waypoint is the end of the unmapped road and the start of the tiny pad to the right of that.