Baw Baw Village to Mt St Phillack, Baw Baw National Park - May 2016

Last week our seemingly endless Indian summer meant that I was able to wander around the sea side town of Sorrento in a shirt and a light weight shirt, this week we've flicked the switch and winter seems to have arrived. With some fairly average weather buffeting the state for much of the week I had only managed to ride to work once so I was keen to get out and do a walk on Saturday, but where to go? Walking in cold rain isn't my favourite type of walking, and with rain and showers predicted for most of the state my options were looking a little on the thin side, walking in the snow is actually a lot more enjoyable than the rain in my books so with snow showers predicted down to 1200 metres on Saturday I figured that a snow walk would be the go. So after consulting my library of guide books I decided to head up to Mt Baw Baw and do one of Mr Chapman's walks.

This fairly non-descript intersection in the small Mt Baw Baw Village is the start of the walk.

So after dusting off all my cold weather gear I headed off on the pleasant two and a half hour drive to Mt Baw Baw, arriving at 10:30am to be greeted by sleet and low cloud, sleet is still better than rain in my books. After rugging up I headed through the small village to the start near the visitor centre, I was on fairly familiar territory here as I've skied and walked at Mt Baw Baw a fair bit over the years, so there was no real issue today finding the start of the walk. Leaving behind the dormant ski lifts I crossed a small creek and climbed up a walking track before joining a wide cross country ski trail. There are a lot of intersecting tracks through here with numerous cross country ski trails heading off into the snow gums so it pays to keep a bit of an eye on your map, you're not going to get seriously lost but you can easily find yourself having to retrace a little to get back on the right route.

Leaving the village and ski tows behind.

I was now climbing the well defined and signposted Village Trail, the weather was more or less holding with the occasional sleety shower sweeping through. It was beautiful easy walking along here, the Snow Gums not only covered with fresh snow but, something that is very rare in our alps nowadays, the Snow Gums are all mature and haven't been scorched in bush fires. Arriving at a track junction called Five Ways it was time to put the DSLR away in the dry bag, with the weather now deteriorating a bit I would now have to use my small waterproof camera, so the photos will suffer a bit. Five Ways also marked the spot where the day walkers at Mt Baw Baw had turned back, from now on the only foot prints in the snow were from the native animals.

Easy walking on Village Trail.

Leaving Five Ways the Village Trail gently makes its way to Baragwanath Flat, with virgin snow to walk on it was really enjoyable walking along here, the cross country ski trail providing gentle gradients and making it easy for me to take in the scenery without worrying about tripping over. Obviously there was no far reaching views today, but with the mist swirling through the large granite boulders and the vivid colours on the wet trunks on the Snow Gums, there was lots to hold my interest. Arriving at Baragwanath Flat I left the ski resort behind and entered the Baw Baw National Park, leaving the cross country ski trails behind I now headed off into the gathering gloom towards Mt St Phillack on more traditional walking tracks.

At Baragwanath Flat I headed off onto more traditional walking tracks.

Yeah, I'm a bit of a fan of the old Snow Gums!

Now on the narrower walking pad I had to concentrate a little more to keep from going arse over in the slippery icy conditions, the snowy track drops a little to cross West Tanjil Creek on a long section of boardwalk before climbing up to meet the long distance Australian Alps Walking Track. The Australian Alps Track is a walk that is still on my bucket list to do at some stage, I've walked sections of it but I'd really like to tackle the whole 600 to 700 kilometres one day.....watch this space! Today though I only followed a very short section up to the summit of Mt St Phillack, at 1565 metres Mt St Phillack isn't that high by world standards but its not bad for Australia. Arriving at the summit cairn the weather was now seriously cold, any sleet had long gone and it was now real snow falling. I was feeling pretty happy though, the walk was half over and the going, whist cold and snowy, was pretty easy really, sitting on the cairn eating my scroggin I was thinking to myself how good is this snow walking caper?

After meeting The Australian Alps Walking Track I made the short side trip up to the summit of Mt St Phillack.

The Feral walker on Mt St Phillack.

So, after retracing a little to a small saddle above Freemans Flat on the Australian Alps Walking Track I turned off onto my return route. Now I haven't walked this track for quite a few years, but my memories of it were that it was a bit overgrown so I was expecting some slow going with everything covered in fresh snow. Initially I dropped down through the low alpine scrub to an old signpost standing like a lonely sentinel on the wind swept Freemans Flat, there was a selection of rough pads to follow until I reached the signpost but from there on I was more or less off track until I reached the Village Trail again at Baragwanath Flat. Now there may have been a rough pad, but with the low alpine scrub now weighed down with snow, for the most part I couldn't detect it. With map, compass and GPS now being frequently referred to progress slowed a little, every now and again I'd come across a sign that this used to be a designated walking track, a derelict bridge here, the odd snow pole there, but for the most part I was pushing through the waist high alpine scrub.

Pushing through the snow covered scrub down onto Freemans Flat, there is an old signpost in the photo somewhere.

Partially frozen tarns on Freemans Flat.

Sections of the old pad were a little on the damp side.

Stay on the right side!

Slowly but surely I made my way over the low ridge that features some large granite boulders called The Tors, dropping off the ridge I picked up a very old track track down to Baragwanath Flat, a hundred metres or so from where I left the Village Trail earlier in the day I picked it up again. Hey, hey, happy days, I was now back on a wide cleared path, what could go wrong? Quite a bit actually, after a few hundred metres of cruisey snow walking along Village Trail I arrived at a track junction informing me that the Village Trail was closed for summer maintenance, hmmm, what to do? Figuring that summer was well and truly over and that I had already completed a long section off piste I decided that the closed Village Trail wouldn't hold to many terrors for me.

Climbing up towards The Tors, for the most part I couldn't see a pad, it was mostly map, notes and GPS along here.

Every now and again I'd come across a tell tale sign that I was on the right track.

Up on The Tors I came across these snow poles resting in the forest, it looks like Parks Vic maybe trying to discourage punters from walking this track.

Pushing through this stuff is fairly hard work, a lot of it was waist height.

Back on Village Trail, all easy from now on....

But then again..... Seeing that summer was well and truly over I was fairly confident that there wouldn't be much maintenance going on today, so I pushed on.

So off I trudged up the Village Trail, by now the weather conditions had deteriated even more and visibility was down to a few metres at times. Whilst officially closed Village Trail still had quite a few snow poles, track markers and signposts visible so navigation wasn't really much of an issue even in the low visibility. I guess the reason that the track was closed was because in spots it had become completely overgrown with scrub and also a lot of the track infrastructure had fallen into disrepair, it wasn't a real problem but it wasn't a section of track for inexperienced walkers. After crossing the very damp Long Plain and Pudding Basin the overgrown track came out at LaTrobe Track and at around the same time I started to see the resorts ski tows and infrastructure materialise out of the gloom.

Some of the infrastructure on the last section of the Village Trail needed a bit of love.

Long Plain.

The closed section of Village Trail between Long Plain and Pudding Basin was the most overgrown bit.

A tarn on Pudding Basin.

The walk was now coming to a quick end as I followed the cross country trails back down to the visitor centre, the main interest along this short section was the large granite boulders in the forest, with a light sprinkling of fresh snow on them looking a bit like icing sugar on a cake. Reaching the visitor centre it was just a matter of trudging through the small alpine village back to the main carpark. After quickly slipping out of my damp wet weather gear and throwing it all in the back of the ute I jumped in and cranked up the heater, interestingly the ambient was hovering in the -1 to 0 degree range, yeah it was a bit chilly. After giving Sam a quick call to let her know all was well I headed off, arriving home at 6pm after what had been a fairly action packed day to a warm home. By the way if you want to see Lyrebirds in the bush the drive up from Noojee to Mt Baw Baw is the place to go, on the drive up and down the mountain I must have seen a dozen Lyrebirds from the front seat of the ute, unfortunately they were all way to quick for me to get a photo of them but there are a lot of them out there.

On my final descent back to the village.

The forest has a lot of these giant boulders scattered through it.

The Dirt.

I walked 11.3 kilometres and climbed 377 metres on this walk. I notice Mr Chapman rates this as a Medium-Hard standard walk, I'd rate my walk today as a Hard walk. Maybe the pad across The Tors would be followable if there wasn't any snow on the ground, I'm not sure, but under snow its definitely hard. The return route along the southern part of the Village Trail was fairly hard as well, although the trail was closed so you can't really complain about that, the closed Village Trail was nowhere near as tough as the track over The Tors though. Like I've mentioned above this walk has been published by the House of Chapman, its walk number 34 in the second edition of their Day Walks Victoria book.

A slightly dishevelled Feral walker about to jump in the ute and head home, I'm cultivating the late Bob Ellis look!(And so he went...hey its my blog)...if only I had his gift when driving the key board!