An Attempt on the Mt Anne Circuit

After the recent success on the South Coast Track in Tasmania, there was still some leave left and so a chance to settle some unsettled business with Mt Anne. This is the highest mountain in SW Tassie, and is an impressive and beautiful peak rising from the shores of Lake Pedder. A few years ago some sons did a very long hard daywalk attempting the summit, but ran out of time and light before the final assault, though we got close. At the time we learned about the Circuit, which  is a four day walk going past Mt Anne, camping on  a high saddle before Mt Lot, and following the amazing narrow rocky ridge line of Mt Lot to the Lonely Tarns and beyond. We wanted to do it from then on, and I saw a chance to try it now. A friend and walking companion of old happened to be visiting Tassie en famille  at the time, and was able to organise a leave pass to join me on the attempt.

We gathered as much info as possible before setting out. My own memory of it was that while tough it was no worse than the  hardest days of the South Coast track (though the Son who did it with me had a memory at variance with this). Reading about the days I hadn't done, the hardest part seemed to be the Mt Lot ridge, especially the part called The Notch where you are advised to pack haul down and up 7 metre rock faces.

We set off on a day which was allegedly going to to be fine, to find the mountain ominously misty. As we climbed the mist lifted, but looking back it was often a little ominous: a bit like this:



It was however spectacular. After a period of climbing you can see the whole of Lake Pedder:



Eventually we came to the hut which marks the end of the nice formed path that makes the first 800 metres or so fairly easy. There we heard that there were various parties that had been holing up in the hut, hoping for a break in the weather. We were starting to learn that walking in SW Tassie is often about waiting for the weather! Things seemed to be getting better, so we started to negotiate the slow boulder climb that takes you up the next 300m or so to the summit of Mt. Eliza. There were bits that looked terrifying, but in fact none was dangerous at all. We did have the feeling it would be scarier going down. And I was beginning to realise that my experience last time was irrelevant, because that was with a day pack: climbing boulders and attempting moves tricky for a non-climber is a completely different experiencewith a full pack .

Soon Eliza was attained. Here's Geoffrey celebrating with a PhD camera (Press Here, Dummy)



We then walked along the beautiful, open Alpine tops for a while. It was scattered with little pools and mossy communities.



Eventually we came to a serious boulder field we had to cross, which was no fun at all with our full packs. You are guided across them by cairns like this one:



Eventually we came to the point where the track diverged from the Anne summit to go down to the Shelf Camp on the saddle before Mt Lot. As we started to pick our way down, Geoffrey pointed out some tents already set up there in the distance, which seemed not to flapping too much (wind is the biggest danger in camping on exposed locations). As we got lower, though, the wind picked up and the other tents were visibly moving. When we got  to the bottom the wind had got really very high. And we found that there was no soil for tent pegs. The shelf was a solid rock shelf. My tent (A Big Agnes FLy Creek 1) takes 13 pegs!

But it was the wind that was the biggest enemy. We struggled to get Geoffrey's tent up, but we managed it with a judicious use of rocks and the cunning trekking pole as spacer bar that substitutes for staking out the corners:(photo taken in the quiet of the morning after!)



Then it was time for my tent: but the wind was now so high we were having no luck holding it in place. And then the guy lines on one slide snapped, as did the attachment point. It was time to abandon this tent for the night, which meant sleeping two in Geoffrey's four season one man tent which meant that we had both to be on our sides, with half the body pressed cold against the tent wall. Only because the tent had vestibules on both sides did we stay dry. A tunnel tent would have had us against condensation. I had been giving Geoffrey a hard time about bringing a heavy four season tent with him, but now I was very glad!

After little sleep and a night of wind an pouring rain, it dawned misty but fine. The Notch loomed in the mist - you can see the vicious cut-out in the ridge line about a couple of km away:

The Shelf Camp site itself was very impressive as the mist lifted:



And our little tent looked very insignificant in it!



While gathering water I got talking to some of the people who were also camped there. The slightly odd feeling that their party had was explained by the fact that they were on a paid expedition with a guide, so didn't know each other. They had been camp camping there for a while waiting for the weather to improve, and the night before we arrived even one of their tunnel tents had broken its poles in the wind! I talked to the guide about what was to come. His view was that although he had free climbed the Mt Lot Ridge in his youth (he was an old man of 30) he certainly wouldn't do it now without harnesses and full gear. I gulped.

This intelligence, plus reading Chapman's notes about how long, exposed and difficult it was, with the rocky ridge in plain view, made us reconsider, especially with more sleepless nights due to tent failure in the offing.

Geoffrey decided to make an attempt on the summit of Anne, which is supposed to be easier than Lot. Here it is from the camp site as the last mist comes off it:



I took the time to actually enjoy being in a truly amazing place for a few hours while he made his attempt. I think that so much bushwalking is spent trying to get places, and then set up or break camp, that time to actually enjoy in tranquility the extraordinary places we are privileged to get to is neglected. I set myself up near the cairn that marks the Anne-Eliza saddle on the route up from Shelf Camp.



From the other direction I had a view of the high ridge line of Mt Lot (the dark one) we had piked from:



Eventually Geoffrey emerged from Anne: he had turned back just before the final, hard bit. He had climbed two stretches he wasn't absolutely sure he could get down, and it started to involved throwing your body over thousand metre drops. And that was the easy part. This certainly vindicated our decision not to continue.

So we reversed our tracks. But defeat will not be countenanced!  The circuit (and the Western Arthurs) might best be done with a guide, and if we can find enough Sons and friends to book out a trip that would make for the best dynamic. So more rock training and a guide should make these classic walks achievable!

The South Coast Track

The South Coast Track is probably the toughest on-track walk in Tasmania. In fact it's clearly tougher than many an off-track walk. It runs through an extraordinary variety of environments: alpine peaks, pristine beaches, alpine meadows, dense rainforest, wet sclerophyll forest, dune communities, dry coastal forest and more. It's long been on the radar of some of the Sons, and this summer we seized the opportunity to make it happen. David Plunkett soon to be of Dartmouth College in the US joined the walk.

People take seven to ten days to do the walk with the occasional party of tiger-walkers doing it in five. We aimed to go for seven, not giving us any rest days. It can be walked from Melaleuca in the far west of South Tasmania to Cockle Creek around 80 km to the east or the other way around. We elected to walk from Melaleuca: that way if you plane gets you in you can be sure of finding a bus at the other end. Walking from East to West risks arriving at Melaleuca with no food, and finding weather has closed the airstrip for a few days.

So on 5 Jan we boarded our little plane:



We were lucky; our flight got through but one leaving the same time turned back for electrical reasons and the flights were cancelled for the rest of the day due to a front coming in. The flight itself is amazing; flying low between mighty peaks of the Arthurs.

We arrived at Melaleuca after less than an hour, to find that it consists of a container in the middle of an airstrip, a hide where you can see the rare Orange Bellied Parrot if you are lucky, and a bushwalkers hut for those coming the other way stranded by a closed airstrip. We got really lucky: we saw a pair of the parrots by the trackside near the hide! There are thought to be about twenty in existence.

We then headed out over a boardwalk over button grass plains (seasoned Tasmanian walkers will know what that would have been like without the boardwalk) and after a few hours we arrived at a remote beach on Cox Bight:



We walked along the beach to Point Eric, and cross the neck of the point. While crossing the point we see the first of many lovely flowering herbs which is perhaps some kind of Stylidium?





Crossing over the neck brought us to our campsite for the first day. It had been a lovely and easy six hours walk, and we quickly put up the tents and the cuban tarp before any rain. This was a good move: it rained on and off all evening but we were able to sit under the tarp and look out over the lovely beach and enjoy it all while having a leisurely dinner. It's always worth having a light tarp on a long trip: it makes all the difference when there's rain.

Here are a couple of us at the campsite having erected the tarp:


And here is Plunkett looking pensive at the colour of the water at the creek a few metres up the beach (it's just tannin of course, the water is beautiful to drink)



And finally here's the view from the beach that the tarp was able to afford us!




During breaks in the rain we were able to explore the lovely beach:



As you can see, rain was never far away. It rains half the time in summer in the South West!



Day 2: Point Eric to Louisa River

The next day we packed and set up shop, and used the simple facilities that are installed at the campsites. This one has a canvas privacy screen to protect you from others coming down the track. My favourite one, at Granite Beach, was on top of a knoll with panoramic views and no screen!



Then on we went towards Louisa River. Louisa River is the camp at the foot of the Ironbound Ranges, and the track to it is pretty well made. It passes over button grass planes, the occasional small forest around rivers, and the Red Point Hills. Here's an image of us heading ever closer to the Ironbounds:



The highlight of the day was our first, and likely last, sighting of a Spotted-Tail Quoll in the wild:



It was wandering around the track in the middle of the day quite unconcerned. I imagine it must have got used to scavenging walkers food, and must have few predators. I've never heard of this happening to quolls  before.

As we approach Louisa River campsite we have to cross the river. It was pretty low, unlike some of the other rivers. This one had a safely rope:



Day Three: Crossing the Ironbounds to Little Deadman's Bay

The next day was crossing the Ironbounds. The track to the top looked intimidatingly vertical on the Western side; but was well made so it was merely a matter of keeping your heart rate in the sustainable zone and eating lots of scroggin! As we got higher the views got better:



And near the top it was extraordinary:



It was only then we realised something odd. The Louisa Plains we had crossed were covered in Alpine flora, even though they were at sea level. In this photo you can see the plains (and the easier section of the track as it follows a spur up)



But as we descended the south-easterns side of the mountains two things happened. The first was that the flora went from alpine to rainforest! A complete, dramatic change which contributed to making the thousand metre descent quite challenging. The other thing was that the well made track ended; that was the last of well made tracks until the final day. So what we were left with was descending what was alternately a muddy trench or a root filled running watercourse down a thousand metre descent all overgrown with rainforest undergrowth. The horizontal distance was about 2k; it took almost five hours. The challenge was not to break your leg by getting it caught, or sink too deeply into the mud and lose your boots. Swinging from tree to tree was often more practical than walking! We were very relieved to arrive at Little Deadman's Bay campsite. After we arrived an Austrian chef called Thomas arrived having done almost twice what we did. He was utterly knackered; so much so all he could do was smoke a cigarette and sleep without eating.

Day 4: Little Deadman's to Osmiridium Beach.

The next day started with some by now traditional mud. Here is an easy stretch, easy enough so that we could get cameras out!



Soon however we were at spectacular Prion Beach



The light kept changing, and storms were never far away



One of the great glories of the walk is the four or five km along this beach. But it was all too soon over, and we reached the New River Lagoon which crosses the beach. It's far to fast and deep to wade at the estuary, so you have to walk a kilometre upstream to where there are boats. There are two rowboats; the plan is that you row across to the other side, and then hitch the two boats together and row back, and then leave one boat where you started and row over a third time! The wonder is that no-one seems to defect. I've never heard of a boat not being on both sides.

Here we are (including Thomas) on the Lagoon with Precipitous Bluff in the background:



And here are folk looking dubious about the boats:



Thomas took first row. The current was really strong, and half way over the wind rose. A bad combination: the current wanted to take us out so sea, and fighting against that meant that the boat was often parallel to the rising waves.

Still we got over, and swapped rowers and rearranged the boats.

We then walked on to our intended campsite at Prion East. When we had almost achieved it we found that (not for the first or last time) storms had destroyed the track work, and there was a twenty metre almost vertical sand and slippery rock climb to get to the campsite. When we got the campsite, we found that there was no water: the only water was in soaks at the bottom of the climb! Reason dictated that we move on to the next feasible campsite at Osmiridium Beach. This proved very pleasant. After dinner we explored the beach in the dusk. Here's a photo, with Precipitous Bluff looming in the background:



Day Five: Osmiridium Beach to Granite Beach

This was a relatively easy day, except for some hairy climbs and difficult crossings! The mud was also starting to build up: here's another mudogram:



Day Six: Granite Beach to South Cape Rivulet

This was easily the hardest day. Plunkett and I had been warned by a stranger in a cafe in Hobart when we were poring over the maps! And the people who came in the other direction arriving at Granite Beach camp were shellshocked. It started with a relatively tolerable 600m climb through moderate mud and up waterfalls laughingly called track. But when we got to the top, there was a traverse across the ridge line  for a few km that was extraordinary. Many people were getting in the mud up to their waists. I managed my thighs but no higher. Extreme caution was required at all times so the levels of concentration required were considerable. There were some views, but it was a little hard to enjoy them! At the top, previous walkers trying to avoid mud had created a massively confusing array of twisting mud channels which made it very easy to get lost. One party spent many hours searching for a friend whose screams they could hear, but due to the wind they could not tell from what direction they were coming from (she was found unharmed). After the traverse the descent was perhaps slightly less bad. Here's a photo of an easy section which still had the power to break legs!



As we began the descent we started to meet parties going in the other direction who had left too late. One of the parties we met, including a kid, who had been travelling five hours, blanched with horror when we told them we had been going seven hours. We really didn't see that many of them would make camp by nightfall.

Close to the end I managed to break yet another trekking pole; this time on of Mr Leki's relatively heavy duty carbon poles!

At the bottom of the descent we came to one of the crossings where South Cape Rivulet flows across the beach into the ocean. A couple of parties we had passed going the other direction had forded it at chest height; a piece of dangerous madness. It would be easy to be swept out to sea. One family with a horde of young teenage girls had done this, to our astonishment. The recommended procedure is to wait for the tide!

The tide was in our favour, and we crossed at knee height in the rain.

It was then that the only mildly disturbing thing happened.  It had been a cold and intermittently rainy day, and a couple of us had walked in our shells the whole day. They were, therefore, pretty moist inside and out. While walking this was fine. But we decided on arriving at camp not to change immediately into dry clothes, for the fairly good reason that they would  be needed overnight and it was raining and we couldn't keep them dry. Morale dropped a little when the rain intensified just as the tent body went up, which got rather wet while we were rapidly putting the fly over it.

We went to the tarp to eat dinner, and two of us rapidly started to shiver and go numb and feel very, very cold. Speed of thought reduced too! Anyhow we ate a lot of hot food (I had a five serve of freeze dry which added up to a thousand calories, which I'm very glad I had because I think I may have slightly too little food per day most days) and got into our tents and soon were warm and fine, but it was just a little alarming. It made me think that there needs to be a procedure for getting warm at camp when it's raining and it's been raining all day (in a no-fire zone). Apart from bringing camp clothes (which is weight madness if they don't double as sleeping clothes) I think the only solution is to cook in the vestibule having gone into the tent and changed into the warm clothes. Perhaps this could be improved by pitching the tarp connected to the tent as a porch, or getting a tent that has a lightweight tarpy porch. But the tarp located elsewhere was not a good solution that night. It turned out that it had rapidly dropped to near freezing and there was a bushwalkers weather alert out, but we weren't to know that at the time!

Interesting how psychology changes: at the cold moment I would have paid thousands to be transported back to civilisation. Warm in my sleeping bag I would have paid a lot *not* to be transported out and miss out on completing the walk!

Day 7: South Cape Rivulet to Cockle Creek

We got up at 5 AM on the last day, to make absolutely sure we got the bus which leaves Cockle Creek at 12.30. The timings for the track seemed very variable in their accuracy (I think track conditions varied a lot locally based on very local facts about rainfall). So we didn't want to risk it. It was slowish going at first, thought this was much mitigated by sighting a Padelmelon with Joey:



Eventually we got to Lion Rock:



At this point the path gets much better made as people go to the Rock from Cockle Creek as a daywalk. We motored along this part at great speed and arrived with hours to spare. Here we are having a celebratory lunch waiting for the bus:



Turns out there had been a bushwalkers alert for days, and parties were discouraged from walking. And the weather had halted the flights for days! But we had a great time in this amazing piece of World Heritage wilderness. A highly recommended walk. But even though it is a navigational snack, in other ways it isn't, and some inexperienced parties could get into trouble very easily.

The AAWT: Kiandra to Thredbo

The Sons have for while planned to walk the Australian Alpine Walking Track from Canberra to Kosciusko. Pressures of work meant that the first half of this, south-bound, route had to be postponed. But we decided that we really must do the section from Kiandra to Thredbo over Christmas.  In the end our route deviated from the AAWT for most of the way to avoid track-bashing and to get into deep wilderness.

So a few days before Christmas we headed off to the abandoned gold mining settlement of Kiandra. By the time we got there, the mood in the car was not quite the ecstatic pre-trip feeling you would hope for: the weather forecast was for seven days of unremitting rain. Just as we got to Kiandra and started unloaded our packs an enormous hail storm struck! Pulling a tarp over the packs, we lept back into the car sat in the car and sat, watching the hail pile up on the windscreen for about twenty minutes.

But after a while the hail stopped, and the rain died down. Climbing out of the car we discovered that the tarp had blown off. So we shouldered our wet packs and we headed off into the mud. Pretty soon the rain returned, and spirits sank a little further. But after an hour or so it went away, and by the time we arrived at our planned camp site, Nine Mile Creek, there was sun to be seen. Nine Mile Creek is the site of an abandoned gold digging, and there are signs of its past life to be seen all around the creek.

Here we are newly arrived, thrilled to be able to erect the tents in the dry:






Day Two

After a peaceful night enjoying the ghosts of the diggings (as promised by Chapman's notes) we arose to bright sun. We headed off towards our next target, Happy's Hut. We took a shortcut down a hill to the hut through a snow gum forest with thick undergrowth beautifully in flower: the most splendid thicket of Dianella in flower I've ever seen. After the 45 minute descent we arrived at the hut which has a splendid outlook and a lovely balcony. Although we were not able to overnight here, it seems a fine hut and we retrospectively rated it at Two Rats (the significance of this will become clear later).  Here we are taking the opportunity to air our sleeping bags during lunch.



Heading out across the plains we came across an extraordinary construction which contains what seems to be an eagle's nest. How were eagles persuaded to nest in it? You can just see most of the party resting on the track.



Next campsite was McKeahnie's Creek. We went up the hill from the creek looking for dry ground, and in the morning the mist in the creek valley showed us how wise we were.



And again:



Day Three
Another lovely sunny morning! It was developing into a pattern of dry days with evening thunderstorms. So we set off as early as possible each day so as to get to camp before the evening storms.

This morning we got one of our best views of mighty Mt Jagungal in the distance. One of the highlights of the walk was that Jagungal loomed in front of us for days, and then receded.



Out third camp was O'Keefe's Hut on the edge of the Jagungal Wilderness. You can see in these photos the looming thunderstorm which we raced to the hut:



O'Keefe's hut was a fine billet, with the exception of a very smoky chimney. It contained a very useful old-style food safe of wire mesh, so the surplus food left by a previous party was rat-free - we awarded it Two Rats.




Day Four
The next day we headed into the Wilderness proper. Here's a picture of the party resting under a tree about to approach the Jagungal Saddle:



Passing through the saddle Jagungal starts to recede into the distance:



Pushing on through the wilderness we hadto ford various streams. Here is the party descending into the valley of the Valentine Creek. This was a really magical day. We saw six people in the first six days of the walk, but this day we didn't see a single one, nor a single recognisable track. In the previous days we had seen Scarlet Robins everywhere, but from here on the main birds, apart form the ubiquitous crows, were a small lark-like bird, presumably Richard's Pipit, and a tiny quail, probably a Button Quail?



After fording Valentine Creek it was a short trip to Mawson's Hut. This was a lovely hut, well equipped for winter. It was thoughtfully provided with the complete worlds of C.J. Dennis, A.B Patterson and Henry Lawson! We enjoyed a wonderful Christmas dinner of Pad Thai and Blueberry Cheesecake (the freeze-dried cheesecake mix from Mountain House in the US is amazing!). Christmas crackers with traditionally crap jokes and hats were provided by Paul, and we had had genuinely delicious by non-Bush standards Xmas pud earlier in the day courtesy of Maureen. Here we are at Xmas Dinner!



Amongst the many fine facilities of Mawsons Hut were rat-excluders to put across the bottom of the doors. We hung all our food well out of reach, but lost some soap to the rats. This led us to invent the rat-rating for mountain huts: the more rats, the worse the hut. Mawson's sets the standard as a one-rat hut.

Day Five
The next day was meant to be along the Kerries, up Gungartan, and down to White's River Hut. But the day dawned misty. Very misty: visibility was perhaps 50 metres at best. We headed off, but soon found we had to walk by instruments, using GPS to locate ourselves, setting a waypoint a short distance away, and walking to a bearing. We decided to take the shortest route to a firetrail and headed directlyto the Schlink Pass. All went well and we soon found ourselves at the Schlink Hut, where we met an NPWS ranger who gave us good news about the weather for the remaining two days. A quick walk down the firetrail took us to the White's River hut.



As on previous days, soon after our arrival there was a thunderstorm. Here you can see it brewing over Gungartan and the Kerries from the front porch of the hut:



These huts have very distinctive iron chimneys



And here is  photo of a couple of the party looking out the window, unaware of what ugly surprises the hut still had in store for us:



Despite the best efforts of NPWS, this is a Five Rat hut. In part perhaps because it is so close to the firetrail from Guthega it seems to get the kind of visitors whose idea of a bushwalk is a slog up a dirt road with a backpack full of bundy. Instead of a historic logbook, there was an A4 exercise book where various groups of schoolboys boasted about breaking the furniture. So the rats were more than usually keen. The first sign of trouble was when a rat ran across someone's face at about 3am. A little later the front room was invaded by them, and they scampered happily to the dismay of the party members in the room. They destroyed two of our camp water bladders, and had no intention of being driven out: 'we were here first' their little red eyes exclaimed from the fireplace. At least some of them seemed to be Rattus fuscipes, so they had a real claim to first occupancy. Eventually all was settled, and we got a little more sleep.

Next morning the weather had improved, and set of up the track to the Rolling Ground. Once there we came across our first snow in mid summer!



The presence of snow necessitated the consumption of Kendall mint cake:



From the Rolling Ground we had to make our way across the Consett Stephen Pass. It's a thin bridge that can be hard to locate. It was day of drifitng mist and sun, and as we approached the pass the mist suddenly lifted and prevented us having to find it with GPS. Here's the party in the pass:



After the pass we are on the Main range, and the first delight was Mount Tate. Here's Maureen, first to conquer the mountain:



And here are some of the wonderful views that were to be see seen:





And here is your photographer on the Summit:



Next campsite was on the Anton Anderson pass, between Mount Anton and Mount Anderson. Early arrival gave us a chance to explore a little. Here's a picture of the ubiquitous Snow Daisy, Celmisia Longifolia.



Here's Paul, sheltering under his beloved tarp:



And here is the whole party with Mount Anton in the distance:



One feature of the land to the east of the Pass is enormous rock formations that look like Easter Island statues. I didn't have a long lens with me, so they look a little piddling in this photo, but it gives you a sense of the landscape:



Day Seven
The morning was glorious. At the very moment I emerged from the tent the sun rose:



Walking out of the pass into the higher country we started to really feel we were on the roof of Australia:



Here is Mount Anton, now behind us:



And here is a view back North that shows the summit of Mount Tate, on the right of the photograph, that we so much enjoyed the previous day:



Next summit was Mount Twynham. Here's one of us looking out at Mount Kosciusko, the rounded peak in the background:



Up on this peak, you have a real sense of the world being below you:




And here are Paul and I on the trig point!



And here is the party reluctantly walking down from the peak:



You will have noticed many pictures of stark white forests. Northern hemisphere readers might think it was winter and the trees had lost their leaves. In fact it is the legacy of the 2003 fires; terrible firestorms that killed thousands of hectares of Alpine forest. The white skeletons of the snow gums are what remain. There are saplings under them all, but it'll be many years before they grow to the height of the old trees. Here's one of us looking out over dead forest to the horizon:





From here the track began to get a little more touristy, especially after the Blue Lake track and massively so after Mount Koscuisko. But the view of Lake Albina always impresses:



From there is was out over the tourist track, and down the chairlift to Thredbo where Karola was waiting to collect us. Mission accomplished. Well done Sons (and Daughters)!