Snowy Mountains - Main Range - December 2018
Track Notes are at the bottom of this page
Snowy’s hike
From the 19th – 22nd December, I am organising a hike for all Scout & Venturer age children on the main range of the Snowy Mountains.
The rough plan is:
Day 1
Drive to Charlottes Pass & hike up passed Blue Lake and then head north-east to camp at the back of Little Twynam. It is approx. 10.5km with a height gain of approx 250m
Day 2
Break camp and head back south along the range to camp at Wlkinsons Creek, a lovely valley between Mt Kosciusko and Mt Townsend. On the way we will stop by some of the peaks along the range including Little Twynam, Mt Twynam, Watsons Crags, Caruthers Peak, Mt Lee, Mt Northcote and for the more daring out to Mt Sentinel.
Note that there is no requirement to go up to the peaks of all the mountains, but they are not far off the trail & don’t take too much effort to get to (in most cases they are only 30m or 40m higher than the ridge track you are hiking).
The hike, without any side trips, is about 12km and with the exception of the small climb back up from our camp is a reasonably undulating day with no real climbs (if you do a couple of the side trips then there will be a bit more involved e.g. if you come out to the Sentinel then you will descend over 350m from the top of Mt Carruthers, which you then need to walk back up).
Day 3
Today we base camp at Wilkinsons Creek and head out to do some “peak bagging”. For those that are interested in summitting the top 10 peaks in Australia, we will head out over Kosciusko to the back of Thredbo and Rams Head North, whilst passing Etheridge Ridge Peak & Rams Head in the process. We also need to summit Mt Townsend, Abbott Peak & Byatts Camp, which are all within 1.5km of camp.
If you choose to come out to Rams Head North, then you can expect to be hiking about 20km today but it is fantastic cross country hiking in a beautiful part of the world and you only have a day pack to carry – not your full hike pack.
If that is too much, then we could simply visit Lake Cootapatamba or for the really lazy you can simply hang around camp (but that kind of defeats the purpose of being out here)
Day 4
For those that didn’t visit Kosci yesterday, you can have another chance as we return to the cars at Charlottes Pass. A primarily downhill walk of about 11.5km.
An alternate route that is a lot shorter would be to come across country via Mt Clark, a 7.8km hike from camp to Charlottes Pass but mostly off track and a bit steeper.
Some notes about the hike:
From the 19th – 22nd December, I am organising a hike for all Scout & Venturer age children on the main range of the Snowy Mountains.
The rough plan is:
Day 1
Drive to Charlottes Pass & hike up passed Blue Lake and then head north-east to camp at the back of Little Twynam. It is approx. 10.5km with a height gain of approx 250m
Day 2
Break camp and head back south along the range to camp at Wlkinsons Creek, a lovely valley between Mt Kosciusko and Mt Townsend. On the way we will stop by some of the peaks along the range including Little Twynam, Mt Twynam, Watsons Crags, Caruthers Peak, Mt Lee, Mt Northcote and for the more daring out to Mt Sentinel.
Note that there is no requirement to go up to the peaks of all the mountains, but they are not far off the trail & don’t take too much effort to get to (in most cases they are only 30m or 40m higher than the ridge track you are hiking).
The hike, without any side trips, is about 12km and with the exception of the small climb back up from our camp is a reasonably undulating day with no real climbs (if you do a couple of the side trips then there will be a bit more involved e.g. if you come out to the Sentinel then you will descend over 350m from the top of Mt Carruthers, which you then need to walk back up).
Day 3
Today we base camp at Wilkinsons Creek and head out to do some “peak bagging”. For those that are interested in summitting the top 10 peaks in Australia, we will head out over Kosciusko to the back of Thredbo and Rams Head North, whilst passing Etheridge Ridge Peak & Rams Head in the process. We also need to summit Mt Townsend, Abbott Peak & Byatts Camp, which are all within 1.5km of camp.
If you choose to come out to Rams Head North, then you can expect to be hiking about 20km today but it is fantastic cross country hiking in a beautiful part of the world and you only have a day pack to carry – not your full hike pack.
If that is too much, then we could simply visit Lake Cootapatamba or for the really lazy you can simply hang around camp (but that kind of defeats the purpose of being out here)
Day 4
For those that didn’t visit Kosci yesterday, you can have another chance as we return to the cars at Charlottes Pass. A primarily downhill walk of about 11.5km.
An alternate route that is a lot shorter would be to come across country via Mt Clark, a 7.8km hike from camp to Charlottes Pass but mostly off track and a bit steeper.
Some notes about the hike:
- Once we leave Charlottes Pass we will be above the tree line for the whole hike. Even in the middle of summer it can snow so you need good wet weather protection and zero rated sleeping bags (a proper list of items will be provided to those that are interested in coming)
- Despite being in the Snowy mountains the hiking is actually very easy (by my standards) and most moderately fit children can complete this.