Eastern Arthurs 2016 i Needles and Geeves Bluff

The Eastern Arthurs connote wild, remote beauty; beyond that, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, but I was looking forward to seeing and experiencing whatever it was that lay ahead. I hoped to climb Federation Peak, although didn’t have my heart set on it, and unequivocally wanted to climb The Needles, (an Abel as yet unclimbed). That, I thought, should be a pretty definite possibility. Apart from that, great views and that special feeling fostered by deep wilderness lay on the agenda.

On the first day, we began after lunch and no one seemed in a hurry, so we didn’t make violent distance before calling it a day, and pitching our tents on a broad spur just past Two Mile Creek. We were rewarded next morning by scenes as in the two photos above. One of the features of bushwalking in the wilderness that I love best is precisely that ability to say, “Let’s camp here”, and just drop your bundle and pitch your little tent with views to die for.
On this occasion, however, doing that delightful thing had the downside that it meant a bigger-than-expected second day across the hot plains that left some of our members rather exhausted. We developed the cute habit of leaving two members behind at every campsite for a while after this. Eleven became nine by the time we arrived at Goon Moor for the third night. But I have jumped ahead. First we need to leave the plains, pretty as they are in the pictures of our first night in the above two photos, and climb up onto the range.

On the far right of this photo, you can see the backside of the Boiler Plates. Below left is Lake Leo, and behind, the famous East Portal, object of our quest on the return journey. For now, however, we are intent on reaching the campsite from which we will make our attempt on Federation Peak, viz, Hanging lake, so will not spend time or energy on longer, distracting climbs, although we did do a few smaller ones en route.

Kathy and Tony climbing as we make our way to the Stuart Saddle. Those are The Needles above, which several of us will climb after lunch.Angela, climbing towards the saddle at which we will dump our packs before climbing The Needles.

Dale and Wayne coming along the route that we later abandoned due to its dramatic plunge between two Needles. I’m glad we climbed these lesser Needles as well, as the views were fabulous.

The Louise that took the picture above was a very happy one. We had dropped our packs in the saddle suggested by the Abels book, and now were on our way to the summit of The Needles. However, this route involved a descent between some of the Needles that several members of the group were not comfortable with, so we actually ended up returning to the saddle and going back down the track until we were just short of being underneath the Needle that constitutes the summit. Even from here, the climb was not without its challenges.

Wayne, Angela and Dale went right of a rocky spur that gave them a route that was very steep and felt a bit loose in places. I went left of this spur, followed by courageous Kathy. Our route was great except for the final lunge for the summit, where we were clinging to minuscule pieces of rock with a very daring and not exactly pleasant drop straight into the  lake below. I concentrated on clinging to rock and tried not to see what was in my peripheral vision. Kathy says she is scared of heights, so I was very proud of her when she emerged onto the summit space having dared that route too. I was NOT looking forward to climbing back down that way, so was greatly relieved to discover that the route the others had taken didn’t involve exposure of that nature. We all went down their route.