God bless America

The twin joys of my working life are the opportunity to tack on weekend trips to national parks whilst in the US, and the ability to accumulate vast amounts of ridiculously cheap outdoor gear through hotel delivery while on the same trips. My most recent spell hit these two notes magnificently, with a sackful of climbing and skiing gear waiting for me at the SF Westin, and the ability to spend a weekend in the Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks via a 4 hour, rather tedious drive from the Bay Area. 

After a tiring but largely uneventful week split between Washington DC, New York, Chicago and unpleasant airports, it was an absolute relief to jump in a rental car on Saturday morning and hit the freeway. I'm always amazed at the sheer volume of traffic on US roads regardless of the time of day, and this was no exception. Wall to wall cars on a five lane road. California is in the midst of a drought, and the hot, dry, dusty drive East was relentless. The ascent up to the parks from Fresno did however bring some comfort, with cooler temperatures and pleasantly green trees replacing the baked, hazy fields. 

I spent the Saturday afternoon seeing some of the more obvious sites: the big trees, Moro Rock and a range of lookouts. I've previously spent time in Yellowstone, Rocky Mountain NP, Yosemite and the Tetons, and the Sierras are no less spectacular. I hoovered down a pepperoni pizza and local ale at the Grant camp area, before taking a sunset night walk around the magnificent trees in Grant Grove. It was a different experience walking among the giant trees in the absence of the heavy crowds present during the day. The night  was spent curled up in the back of my rental Hyundai, padded by an air mat I brought over from Australia and kept warm by a great quilt I had delivered to my hotel by Enlightened Equipment. Ironically it was the best nights sleep I got on the trip.

I was up early on Sunday morning for the drive down to Wolverton. I'd done some reading that suggested this was a good area to hit on limited time, and was planning to head out to the lakes and/or Alta Peak On the drive out I managed to startle a bear sitting on the side of the road, my first close encounter with one of these beautiful animals. I was too excited to snap off any photos, but was energised by the encounter. 

From the trail head I decided to head out to the lakes, and from there try and scramble up to Alta Peak. It was a relatively pleasant run out (albeit largely uphill), with beautiful views over rocky peaks and canyons, contrasting with a small chain of alpine lakes towards the end. I rewarded myself with a cold swim in Pear Lake, then decided to set off toward Alta Peak. Although the route up looks a little scrambly, its essentially an unmarked but fun walk up. The altitude made things interesting, but it was relatively easy route finding to the top. 

From Alta Peak it was a pleasant downhill run back to Wolverton, with regular stops to chat to others out on the trail and to snap off photos. The views out to the main ranges of the Sierra were inspirational for future trips, and there were some beautiful gnarled fox-tail pines along the route. I felt completely relaxed on the drive back to SF, a wonderful contrast to the drive out. 

White's River Powder Harvest

There were numerous occasions on this trip when I had to pinch myself and confirm that it was indeed good old Australia that was putting on beautiful windblown powder in nicely spaced trees. Throw in the kind assistance of a high pressure system offering up perfect blue skies and gentle winds and this was about as good as it gets.

The original intention was to ski over the rolling grounds to Schlink or Whites River on Saturday, then ski back to the main range on Sunday for a nice night up high. Once we started skiing the trees around White’s River the plan quickly changed to getting in as many runs as possible (not to mention it was very cold and the lure of the hut was bordering on irresistible).

On Saturday night the hut was crowded, with around 20 people competing for two benches and a few measly logs generally regarded as dangerous for the purpose of seating. We made the most of it though, with more card game heroics and tales of adventure. It was to the tent (~tarp) for the night though, with the early morning cold quickly putting an end to any feeling I previously had in my toes. Sunday night I quickly secured some space on the hut floor, bush rats be damned.

The tour in across the rolling grounds was beautiful, as was the tour out on the Disappointment Spur trail. On the animal front the only sighting was a sneaky looking fox who has evidently set up home just west of Gungartin for the winter. He/she looked more surprised than I did. It will be interesting to come back to this area later in the season or in a year with less snow, but right now its firmly stored away as a beautiful destination for some nice tree skiing all in sight of a hut with a warm fire.

Broken Dam Hut Ski Tour

Excellent early snowfalls and the absence of a Japan ski trip over the Australian summer had me itching at the thought of a trip to the Snowy Mountains. The call was put out for partners with the usual mixed response, but welcomingly Joran was on the same page. Previously my focus has primarily been on snowboard touring out of Guthega, and this was the initial idea this time around as well. As fun as this is, on snowy and windy days it can make for testing conditions and less than relaxing days. 

With this in mind (and a mixed weather forecast), it was a welcome idea when Joran floated the plan of joining his parents for a ski tour out of Selwyn to a few of the huts in the north of the Kosciuszko NP. It would also give me a chance to test out some telemark skis I had picked up when in the US for work last year. I’d gone for the K2 Wayback, a light mid-width ski that mixes good touring ability with strong downhill performance.

The trip ended up being a three day one: heading out to Broken Dam Hut via Four Mile Hut on day one, day tripping to Table Top mountain on day two, then returning back to Selwyn on day three. I’d done some cross country skiing years ago, but this trip really opened up my eyes to the joys of getting out and about in the mountains without a goal of skiing more challenging lines. As it turned out the Wayback was a decent, but not perfect fit for the tour, with the pattern base skis everyone else was using clearly a superior option. Another purchase to plan out for the future.

Broken Dam Hut was a fantastic base for the weekend. The area surrounding the hut looked stunning with a layer of fresh snow, and the clean and spacious hut made meal and sleeping times far simpler than being tend bound otherwise would. It also meant we could spend afternoons practicing telemark turns on the gentle slopes in the surrounding area.

There appear to be a range of opinions on the huts (including some who see them as being against the values of a NP), but I have nothing but positive sentiments. They are basic facilities, but offer a wonderful mix of simple comfort (for those exploring the mountains for pleasure now),  historic interest (based on those who explored the mountains for commercial reasons in years gone by) and safety (for those who get in trouble exploring the mountains).

The ski tour back to the car was lit by the sun trying to poke out from beyond the clouds. The soft shadows on the snow were spectacular, and at higher elevations the skiing was smooth and (relatively) quick. It had been a welcome weekend of pleasant skiing, beautiful scenery and many laughs, a refreshing break from the Sydney working life.

Kaputar & The Warrumbungles

Pete and I had decided to tack an extra day onto the Queen’s Birthday long weekend and make the long drive north-west to Kaputar and the Warrumbungles, a few parks we had been talking about visiting for a while. Both feature amazing rock formations and because of their distances from the East Coast are relatively quiet. The plan was to pack the bikes to do some cycling, and tick off a few of the more interesting walks in the parks.

We camped overnight at Burning Mountain on Friday night (about a 3 hour drive from Sydney), and got up early the next day to head to Narrabri and on to Kaputar. We arrived to slightly misty and cool conditions, and decided to have an easy afternoon setting up camp and doing some cycling on the long and steep hill formed by the main sealed road in the park. This was testing for my lungs, but helped clear away some of the aftereffects of the cold I’d had the previous week. 

The plan on Sunday was to do the Yulludunida Crater Walk, and consider adding on the traverse out along the crater ridge subject to conditions. It was a nice clear day and so there were to be no excuses. The ridge traverse seems to be known as the ‘Skyline Traverse’ in the rock climbing community, but doesn’t appear to see too much traffic. This is somewhat surprising given how absolutely fantastic an experience it is. The route is about 1500m of scrambling across a very scenic and in places exposed knife edge ridge. Some spots require very basic climbing, with one or two in particular being exposed enough to get the heart racing. The views in all directions are amazing throughout, and this would have to rank among the top days out I have had.

We spent the next two days (Monday and Tuesday) in the Warrumbungles. We ticked off the climb up Split Rock on Monday, before hitting a 15k trail run up onto the High Tops on Tuesday morning. The area has been heavily impacted by the fires of early 2013, but remains absolutely stunning and well worth a visit.

Taffy's Rock Microadventure

I had been put onto the good work of Alistair Humphreys by Hornsby Heights Athlete/Adventurer of the Year and all round good guy A Bowesman (aka the Bowesmanator). Humphreys has made a deserved living out of espousing the microadventure, essentially any short trip out of the city requiring minimal time commitment, but still providing that feeling of really getting away from it. We had discussed doing a microadventure ourselves for some time, and a date finally came up when we could turn plans into action.

The itinerary was to jump on a train out of the city on a Friday night (post work), and start walking from the train station. We would then set up camp, enjoy dinner and a game of cards or two, before returning to civilisation via the walk out the next day. We picked Cowan, having previously done the route out to Taffy’s rock in daylight and thinking the turnaround point would make for a good camping spot. 

The track out to Taffy’s from the GNW is a little scrubby in places, but surprisingly felt easier in the dark than it had during the day. There were some light spells of rain on the way out, but overall nothing of any great consequence. After setting up the tents we sat down for a dinner of braised beef cheek and mixed vegies pasta as well as numerous games of cheat and crazy 8’s. I recall numerous noble victories for myself, but this may be my memory playing tricks. 

Overall the experience was a fantastic one. I was back home in Lane Cove by midday Saturday feeling refreshed, healthy and ready for a game of football. Humphreys is right, time is really no restriction on getting outdoors and capturing the refreshing and recharging feeling of adventure. 

Major Clewes…. The Original Hard Man of the Mountains (a Snowy Mountains Easter)

I find it useful sometimes to reflect on the exploits of other (much tougher) folks who enjoy spending time in the mountains. Enjoyed your 10 hour jaunt among the peaks and feeling like a true hard man? How about doing the same thing, every day, for 3 days in the winter? Along those lines comes perhaps the hardest of mountain hard men, Major Hugh Powell Gough Clewes (hereafter “The Major”). After a career that included extensive time spent surveying areas including the Wollemi and Blue Mountains, The Major took on a job in the 1960s as Senior Surveyor for the Snowy Scheme.

The crux of this role was to figure out where to put the tunnels, roads, dams and power stations that make up the engineering marvel that is the Snowy Scheme. Legend has it that the Major would set off for days with nothing but a wide brimmed hat, a few snacks (energy gels perhaps?) and a small flask of rum. Having spent a little bit of time off track in the Snowy Mountains, this most certainly would have been a very daunting task. Not so for The Major, who lapped up the job at hand. Did I mention he was in his 60’s at this point in time?

Whilst in the Snowy Mountains over Easter, we found a day to take a good friend’s new 4WD on a fire trail from Geehi Flats out to Major Clewes Hut, a small building he built to enjoy his retirement post Snowy Scheme. The hut is in a beautiful location not far from a river, and the remnants of what was apparently once a very beautiful garden are still present. It certainly would have been a very peaceful, if not lonely, spot to reflect on a lifetime spent exploring. There has evidently been quite a bit of effort put in to maintaining and restoring the hut in recent years, and we should be thankful that there are people out there willing to give up large amounts of their own time to ensure that we can all enjoy a little bit of the history of these mountains.

We spent another day walking from Charlottes Pass, up to the Blue Lake and then onwards and outwards to the Sentinel. The Sentinel stands out as a spectacular narrow ridge jutting out to the west of the main range, and is a little startling after the more mellow slopes on the eastern side. I’d been planning to make the trip out for some time, but a day had finally come around with that rare combination of time and good weather.

The ridge starts fairly gently, but soon narrows off to a pad with steep slopes dropping away either side. Shortly before the final push to the Sentinel trig, there are two bands of rock that take this a little beyond an exposed walk.  Technically easy, but enough to get the heart rate up a little bit. The views from the summit are magnificent, sweeping across the back of Carruthers peak, out to Geehi and Victoria, then through to Watsons Crags. Anyone who cracks cheap jokes about Australian mountains has clearly never been to this spot.

Earlier in the day my brother and I had run from Guthega up towards Little Twynam (not making it all the way), so the legs were feeling rather tender when we finally made it back to the cars. Still, the thought of the major traipsing all over the mountains for days on end was enough to put our little adventure in perspective. 

Buddawuddawingwangs....................

A trip to the Budawangs had been on the “to-do” agenda for the last 10 years or so. It takes pride of place as one of the more challenging and interesting walks in my well-thumbed copy of the NSW in the Lonely Planet Australian hiking guide, but for one reason or another there had always been another walk to do (or a reason not to walk at all). 

This weekend had been set aside for a weed removal weekend with NPWS on the Snowy River, but that fell through at the last minute (satisfyingly we likely ended up removing more foliage in the Budawangs than we would have if that had gone ahead). This left James and I with a 3 day block and a blank canvas… enter the Budawangs. 

We left Sydney earlyish on Friday, stopping briefly at Hungry Jacks so I could acquire the full suite of available breakfast delights. We made good time through to the quiet camping area at Wog Wog, arriving at 11am and ready to hit the track at 11.30am. Neither of us had ever done any walking in the area before (aside from the route up Pigeon House), so expectations were non-existent but the mood chirpy.

The first section of the track meanders through fairly open forest, before hitting scrubbier sections as it heads up onto the ridge leading out to Corang Peak. We made reasonable time, stopping at the turnoff to Admiration Point for lunch, and then quickly ticked off Corang Peak and the arch. This section has recently been burnt out, and we were lulled into a false sense of our own strength and the quality of the track. After descending down into Burrumbeet Brook and filling up on water, we found the track up to Bibbenluke to be a little more daunting of a prospect. There is plenty of evidence of a well-constructed track, with benched sections and duckboard, but the surrounding scrub has done a great job of closing in around the track. Neither of us has extensive experience in walking through this type of vegetation, and it was a genuinely tiring (and scratching) experience.

We camped below Bibbenluke Mountain, and decided to make an early start the next morning in an effort to get out to the Castle and be back at camp at a reasonable time. The track across the saddle to below Mt Cole had more of the molesting scrub we had experienced the day before, but soon cleared up as we entered Monolith Valley. The scenery from the cliffs under Mt Cole is spectacular, covering off the green moss covered sections of rainforest through to the amazing rock shapes of the Seven Gods Pinnacles and Shrouded God Mountain. 

My snap happy photography was pushing us a little behind schedule, so we dropped some water at the bridge and made for The Castle. We managed to take a slightly tricky route (avoiding the obviously easier option in the process), but were up on top in time for lunch. The views out across Byangee Walls to Pigeon House and Coast are stunning, and we allowed ourselves a good half hour to eat and enjoy the location.

We decided on the way back to take the route in between Mt Cole and Mt Owen. This involved some route finding in the gully between the two, although we ended up finding the way out onto the top of Owen with relative ease. Amazingly the weather had tuned from clear skies to misty clouds and light rain by the time we popped out on top, which added a bit of an imposing air to the scrub as we continued towards the gully down off the mountain. It ended up being a straightforward trip back to camp, although we enjoyed the finest efforts of James (aka Ainsley Harriot) Cordukes’ cooking relatively quickly before tucking in to bed against a backdrop of ongoing drizzle.

The trip out on Sunday started in more drizzle, which made for unpleasant conditions through the scrub between Bibbenluke and Burumbeet. My shins had taken a mild beating in the previous two days and were feeling pretty sensitive on the way out. It was a pleasure to get to the Corang Ridge, change into some dry clothes and look back on the beautiful green expanse of the brooks. It was a good chance to reflect on what had been an amazing few days out in the bush.

Amazingly we saw very little wildlife on the trip. There were a number of interesting birds around the Bibbenluke campsite and plenty of wombat droppings, but we didn’t see much aside from that. Perhaps the relatively dry soil on most of the plateaus and scrubby plant life discourages most animals? 

The recent big fire around Corang made for easy going on that section of the track, but other sections of the track are becoming heavily overgrown. It’s always a fine line between letting the area return to its wilderness state and doing a small amount of track maintenance to ensure the route is pleasant to follow. It would be nice to see some basic work done on the section between Burumbeet and Bibbenluke to take away from the physicality and scratchiness of the scrub through here. Overall this walk covers some beautiful scenery, but I suspect many will increasingly be put off by the quality of the track. Having said that it’s clear a decision has been made based on the “Wilderness” definition of the area, so such maintenance appears unlikely. 

All in a wonderful walk with good company, and I look forward to exploring other areas of the Budawangs in the future.