This was my first time walking a loop that crosses Mt Bogong twice. I've recently revisited this walk and will put a link up at the end of the post. This old walk was one of my first extensive off track excursions so it was a pretty adventurous walk at the time for me and I was happy to be accompanied by my mate Dave. Also this trip was well before all the recent fires have ripped through the high country so the spurs are still crowned with green Snow Gums in these dodgy old photos, instead of the bleached white dead ones of today. As seems to be the norm on these old walks we set off after working all day, arriving at the car park at Mountain Creek just before midnight, although instead of settling in for a couple hours of sleep we instead shouldered our packs and set off into the night.
Day 1 Michell Hut 8.9 Kilometres
We had the latest in headlamp technology on this walk, yep a halogen light with what felt like a car battery strapped to our heads, and they lasted so long, yeah with luck you could get 6 to 8 hours out of one of these babies! So anyway off we trotted up Mountain Creek Firetrack, the only noise apart from the ever present cascading stream was the kangaroos banging their way through the scrub to get away from the strange Thomas the Tank Engine lights bobbing their way up the track. Walking the fire track at night wasn't too bad really, the wide surface allowing us to walk side by side which in turn helped us stay awake. After less than a couple of hours we took the steep short cut track up to Camp Gap and the walking suddenly got a lot steeper and harder. After passing through Camp Creek Gap the track starts its ascent of Eskdale Spur, the cold night air now turning my thoughts to climbing into my sleeping bag as soon as we got to Michell Hut. Climbing up Eskdale we crossed over the small creek that forms one of the headwaters of Mountain Creek, unfortunately this small creek was bone dry so we continued on upwards to Michell Hut, the good news was that the hut was empty, the bad news was that the water tank was also empty, hmm it was going to be a thirsty day tomorrow by the looks of it. We finally crawled into our sleeping bags at around 3am that night, needless to say it didn't take long to drift off to sleep.
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| Packing up in the old Michell Hut, it looks like Dave is perusing some of Mr Thomas' old notes. |
Day 2 Cairn Creek Hut 10.7 Kilometres 19.6 Kilometres Total
With the sun streaming through the windows of the old Michell Hut it was two weary walkers who eventually extracted themselves from their sleeping bags for a bit of a late start to the day. Initially today we had to complete our climb to the summit of Mt Bogong, thankfully the morning, while clear and sunny, was also very cold so we didn't build up to much of a thirst, from memory we had less than a litre of water when we started today. The grandstand views from the summit ridge provided a good excuse to stop for awhile, but our increasing need for water meant that we didn't linger too long. By late morning we had made our way across Black Saddle to Hooker Plateau.
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| Dave looking down on Staircase Spur. |
We had a bit of a dilemma in front of us now, with bugger all water we could descend down into the headwaters of a creek that runs off the plateau but it would be a long descent in these dry conditions. Our other option was to head down to Big River on our route and a guaranteed supply, after a bit of chat we decided to head down to Big River and the more permanent water supply. Before we got to the river though we had to descend down Quartz Ridge, this is a very pretty walk, initially high above the tree line before dropping into the Snow Gums and then dropping very steeply in spots towards our spur track to Cairn Creek Hut. We didn't muck around when we met the Cairn Creek Hut Track and quickly descended down to Big River, back in the day the route down here was rough but still with a distinct track all the way to the bottom. Arriving at the bottom of the valley we gratefully drank as much cold clear water as we liked, a little time without water show you just how fragile the human body is. That night we slept in the draughty Cairn Creek, all alone in this remote river valley.
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Heading down Quartz Ridge.
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Day 3 Mountain Creek Car Park via Granny Spur 14.7 Kilometres 34.3 Kilometres Total
After a very cold night we were up early, today we would climb Granny Spur, the crux of the walk. Now when I say it was cold I mean it was really cold, so cold that my morning drink of water (no hot drinks for me I was young and stupid tough) actually refroze in my cup before I could drink it, hmmm. After leaving the hut we straight away crossed Cairn Creek and started the steep climb up the scrubby Granny Spur, back in those days the scrub didn't form the almost impenetrable wall of bushfire regrowth that tests you now days, but there was still plenty of thick bands of vegetation to push through. With the layers coming off as we climbed we pushed our way ever upwards, by late morning we had arrived onto Horse Ridge and the worst of the climb, as well as the scrub, was over.
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The initial climb out of Cairn Creek onto Granny Spur is steep.
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After regrouping for awhile and taking in the now extensive views over the Bogong High Plains from Horse Ridge, we continued our climb to the Mt Bogong Summit Ridge. The open Snow Gum forest on the upper reaches of Horse Ridge making for ideal walking, it wasn't long before we topped out at the Bogong to Hotham pole line at Tadgell Point. With the tough part of todays walk over we wandered around the summit ridge back to the Mount Bogong cairn for the second time in two days, arriving at the summit in time for a late lunch. We happily ate most of our excess supplies up on the summit as we weren't overly keen to be carrying any more than we had to down the unrelenting Staircase Spur, yeah even in my younger days my knees and I were no fans of steep down hills. From memory our descent down Staircase Spur was largely uneventful and by late afternoon two tired walkers arrived back at the Mountain Creek Car Park. Heading home our tradition in those days was a stop at the Glenrowan Maccas to replenish any fat that we had managed to burn off in three days of walking, the more things change, the more they stay the same I suppose!
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| Our second time at the summit cairn on Mt Bogong in two days, all that was left to do now was a knee crunching descent down Staircase Spur. |
The Dirt.
We walked 34.3 kilometres on this hard walk, keep in mind these distances are pre GPS and are out of my old edition of Mr Thomas' book 120 Walks in Victoria, I suspect that we actually walked a little more than that. Now this walk was a long time ago, the conditions on the ground have changed a lot over the intervening years, the big differences are that the old Michell Hut has been burnt down and a new hut has been built to replace it, most of the Snow Gums are now dead and are stark white skeletons, the route down off Quartz Ridge is now a little more overgrown, particularly lower down, and the final major difference is that the climb up Granny Spur/Horse Ridge is now pretty tough, you have to push through a lot of dense bushfire regrowth now days. Actually if I do the walk again I might head down Granny Spur instead of up, although if contemplating that direction make sure you're a competent navigator in trackless thick scrub, it's a lot harder navigating going down than up.
Here a link to a post that I did recently about a current walk over Mt Bogong and up Granny Spur, its almost the same walk only this time I climbed Staircase and descended Eskdale. Lastly here's another link to a winter walk we did up Staircase Spur to Mt Bogong back in the dark ages.
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| Looking towards the Bogong High Plains in the distance, I think this photo was taken from near the top of Quartz Ridge. |
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