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| James, taking in the view from inside Hollow Mountain. |
A couple of months ago I'd taken my mate James up to the Grampians to walk the Hollow Mountain - Mount Stapylton traverse, as it turned out due to some dodgy weather we never actually did the traverse. So with slightly better weather forecast for this Saturday we decided to head back up and have another go. The start of our adventure played out as if it was a carbon copy of our first, we left Melbourne in the early evening in the pouring rain, arrived at the camp around 11:30 pm and then listened to intermittent showers falling on the tent fly overnight. Next morning when we headed into Halls Gap for breakfast we had to wait while the SES cleared a fallen tree, the low cloud blanketing the mountains around us didn't fill me confidence that we would actually be able to do the traverse on this trip either.
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| It wouldn't be a feral walk if everything ran smoothly. |
Over breakfast the weather gods smiled on us a little though and we headed off towards the Hollow Mountain Carpark under a blue sky. The first part of todays walk was the exact walk that James and I did last time in the Mount Wudjub-Guyun (Hollow Mountain) post. Having walked this recently you would probably assume that there wouldn't be a lot to hold our interest however I think you could walk this bit every month for a year and still find something to hold your interest. Initially it was the bright green regrowth as we made our way up to the rocky ramparts of Hollow Mountain, and then once on the rock there is an endless collect of wind scoured rocks to try and to justice to in a photo. Climbing up rock slabs to the base of the first cliff line we hooked around and scrambled up a rocky undercut ledge, this section of the walk is the tourist route to Hollow Mountain so navigation wasn't an issue we just followed the yellow painted arrows.
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The Grampians are incredibly green at the moment.
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| The first easy scramble. |
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Once up the first step we bypassed what would be our ongoing route to Mt Stapylton and instead continued to follow the tourist route to the top of Hollow Mountain. We were a little earlier in the day than on our last visit so the boulderers were still climbing up carrying their mats on their backs like some kind of human turtles, this also meant that the cave where the route loops back towards the summit was empty so we used the opportunity to check it out and get a couple of photos. With so many caves and over-hangs on this walk they'll be a few photos taken with the walls or roof of different caves framing my photos. We didn't linger too long on the summit of Hollow Mountain today, just long enough to get a couple of photos and to show James the route to Mount Stapylton, now spread out in panarama mode in front of us. Back tracking we retraced our route back down to the cave at the top of the first scramble and headed off on our days adventure to Mount Stapylton.
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Its a rare thing to find this cave not occupied by Boulderers.
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Thats Mount Stapylton in the distance, our route runs left to right along the ridge.
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| The two halfs of Hollow Mountain, Echoes Block is on the left. |
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First up though we had to negotiate the narrow slot that would give us access to the honey comb like insides of this half of Hollow Mountain (this half of the mountain is sometimes called Echoes Block), I was relieved to see that my fat guts still fitted through the tight gap, three weeks on a cruise ship hadn't done me any favours. Once we were both through the slot we started climbing the centre of the mountain. Now there is always a little bit of graffiti in here, normally stuff written on the sandstone in charcoal or something similar but since our last visit some f#*kwit has deemed it necessary to spray paint directions inside the mountain with blue paint, I wondered how I'd react if I came across these idiots in the act.... Luckily the tools with the spray-can don't seem to have made it to far up as the paint soon stopped and we were able to enjoy the ambience of this beautiful spot. With my limited vocabulary I struggle to do justice to this spot, sitting inside a hollowed out mountain gazing out over more rocky turrets, everything framed by the cave it is a special spot.
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Climbing the inside of Hollow Mountain.
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Climbing out onto the ledge.
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Climbing out of the cave system we were once again on the ledge that provides access to the top of this bit of Hollow Mountain, the hard walking was about to start. First up we had a fairly easy but fairly exposed climb up onto the summit, once on top we stopped for awhile while I had a look at my notes, I'd done the traverse from Mount Stapylton to Hollow Mountain before but I'd never walked from Hollow Mountain towards Mount Stapylton. It might not sound like a big difference but with no track or cairns and plenty of cliff lines, chasms and ravines to negotiate it was like I'd never been there before. Well I tell myself it was because last time I was walking in the opposite direction but it may also have a bit to do with the fact that my ankles, knees and hips are fifteen years older than the last time I was here so everything now seems a little more daunting as mortality slowly catches up with me!
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| The final exposed scramble onto Hollow Mountain. |
Leaving Hollow Mountain (Echoes Block) we were faced with one of the obstacles that I hadn't been looking forward to, a negative two metre step across a chasm. Giving my pack and camera to James I gingerly lower myself off the top of the step, once I was close enough that I figured that my ankles and knees would survive the drop I let go. Happy to survive the first obstacle I got James to pass the pack and camera down before helping him down. Scrambling along the ridge we were soon at a spot where we had to descend down through a gully and then climb onto a parallel ridge, now I don't remember this being particularly hard fifteen years ago when going in the other direction, but today it certainly got my attention.
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The first jump, doesn't look that high does it....it was enough to test my joints though.
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Alright mate pass it down.
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James looks a bit unsure....
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A few more metres and this ridge effectively ended meaning we had to cross to a parallel ridge.
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After checking out a couple of likely looking spots to climb into the gully it became apparent that it was going to be another climb down, this time a fair bit higher than the last one. The good thing with this one though was that even though it was higher there were a few decent hand and foot holds to use. Once again I left my pack and camera with a very dubious looking James and eased myself off the edge, there would be no jumping on this one though instead I had to feel around with my foot to get some purchase, peering down trying to see the next spot that might give my boots some grip. Once back on level ground again James passed the gear down before I helped him place his feet as he eased his way down.
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Peering down to check my foot placement as I descended into the gully to cross the the next ridge.
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I think its easier climbing these than descending them.
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Crossing the small gully we easily climbed onto the ridge that would take us to Mt Stapylton. The easy walking didn't last long though, we now got to the what is probably the crux of the walk, a one metre jump across a twenty metre deep chasm. It is not the jump thats hard though, it's the landing. You can almost step across the chasm but you only have a very small jagged piece of rock to land on and regain your balance, if you don't nail the landing you face a twenty metre face plant down jagged rocks, yep nothing could possibly go wrong here! I made the jump and got off the landing site but James wasn't looking happy, with a little encouragement he too launched himself across the chasm, landing the jump perfectly, the colour slowly returning to his face. Incidentally there is meant to be a way around this jump, apparently you can climb down off the ridge, pass through a small hole in the rock, cross the chasm and them climb back onto the ridge, I can't vouch for this route as I've never used it but both Mr Thomas and Mr Tempest have mentioned its existence.
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You can bypass this jump apparently if you descend down off the ridge far enough.
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You'd think I'd be old enough to know better.
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In between scrambles the scenery continued to impress. |
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Soon after the chasm we did have to leave the crest for a little while, passing along a sloping ledge on the north eastern side of the crest before once again climbing to the top. Once we regained the ridge top here we now had some fairly easy walking for awhile, the looming bulk of Mt Stapylton now suddenly very close. What was also very close was some crappy weather, black clouds scudding across the flat plains towards us. Now I knew that there was a good cave on the side of Mt Stapylton but I wasn't sure if we'd make its before the rain hit, and this isn't a walk that you can just crank up the pace. After passing a beautiful section of the ridge that featured quite a few nice tarns we came to the ravine that separates the ridge we were on and Mt Stapylton, with the rain imminent we found a spot were we could climb down with the help of a dead tree. Once in the gully I was back in fairly familiar territory, this is only a few metres from where the normal route up Mt Stapylton heads. Pushing our way down the scrubby gully we did indeed soon intersect with the marked track which we then climbed for twenty metres to the cave, making it just in time to sit out the worst of the rain squall while we had our lunch.
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That's James climbing back up to the crest for the last time.
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The closer we got to Mount Stapylton the easier the ridge walk became.
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Finally we got to this ravine, it separates the ridge from Mount Stapylton.
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If you scout around enough you'll find an easy way down.
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| The cave on the side of Mount Stapylton provides excellent shelter in dodgy weather. |
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With perfect timing the rain had gone by the time we finished our lunch, leaving the resident swallows to the cave we headed back down to our scrubby gully. Climbing up a few metres we picked up a steep shelf that climbed up the side of Mt Stapylton, after passing an exposed corner it was a fairly straight forward climb to the top. Being almost at the extreme northern end of the Grampians the top of Mt Stapylton provides for a grand view. What draws the eyes for me though is the view along the rocky ridge line of the Mt Difficult Range, you can trace the range all the way along to Boroka Lookout near Halls Gap. This is going to be part of the route of the new Grampians Peaks Trail when its finished, something of a conflicting emotion to me because up until now this range has been a place that I could go for some wild walking and camping and generally be on my own. With another rain squall heading our way quickly we decided that it would be a good time to get off the exposed summit, I was pretty keen to get down soon as we were going down the marked route and this is actually more exposed than the route we had used to climb the mountain. The crux of the descent back to the cave is a three metre down climb and while there are plenty of hand and footholds it is still steep enough to get your attention, you definitely don't want to be doing this in the rain.
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The thing with the weather today though was as quick as it arrived it disappeared.
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This is probably the dodgiest scramble on the alternative route up Mount Stapylton (our climbing route) after this it is a very easy scramble.
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This is what all the effort has been for.
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Looking back along the Mount Difficult Range.
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The top of Mount Stapylton has a few tarns.
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| Scrambling down the marked route (you can see a red painted arrow under James' foot) before the rain arrived. |
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Once again our big cave provided a dry haven to sit out the weather, sitting there watching the light and shade created by the clouds project onto the surrounding rocky mountains. After the rain had passed we set off again, now back on a track that I'd walked numerous times over the years there was suddenly no navigational challenges. Fire has ripped through here since my last visit and the country is now starting to look fairly good again, in fact the re-growth is tarting to crowd the track in a few spots. Passing the first turnoff to Stapylton Camp (the track still closed), we started to descent a long rocky ramp with the Taipan Walls towering above us. Stopping to take a photo of Bird Rock halfway down I resisted the urge to climb up onto the bird of a photo, maybe I a starting to grow up after all! Our descent down into the amphitheatre below the Taipan Walls was enlivened by the sight of a couple of groups of climbers on the walls, their tiny bodies helping to give my photos of the majestic cliffs a bit of scale.
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Another tarn, this one on the shoulder of Mount Stapylton.
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The wind has scoured the rock around here into amazing shapes.
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Give your eyes a minute to adjust to this one!
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| Bird Rock. |
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After tracking around the base of the cliffs the route started the short climb up to Flat Rock, progress only halted when I started to get cramp up, yeah I'm getting old. With my cramp under control I hopped around the top of Flat Rock getting one last view of the ochre coloured Taipan Walls, making a mental note to come back here late one afternoon as I think the setting sun would make these cliffs really light up. We were on the homeward stretch now though, first up descending down the huge sloping Flat Rock to the Mount Zero Car Park before wandering along the quiet Mount Zero Road towards the Hollow Mountain Car Park. The road was actually a nice easy finish to the walk and after picking up a short section of an old closed road we were soon back at the ute and heading into Halls Gap for a coffee.
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The famous Taipan Walls (well they are to me!).
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The rock walking continued even after descending from the tops.
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If you look close enough you'll see a climber abseiling down the cliffs, it'll give you an idea of the scale of these cliffs.
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The Dirt.
Now for some reason my GPS recorded some fairly optimistic figure today with the distance coming out at 12.3 kilometres and the metres climbed at 677 metres. I think the metres climbed is about right but I doubt that the kilometres walked is anywhere near right. According to Mr Tempest who has published the latest notes that I have for this walk, the walk is only 6.6 kilometres, although that seems a little light on as well. I suspect that I added a few kilometres to the walk scouting out ways around cliff lines and chasms and I wonder what the GPS in my pack was doing when I was inside the caves. Like I mentioned above Glenn Tempest has published the latest notes describing this route, they are in his
Daywalks Around Victoria book, Tyrone Thomas has also written this walk up in one of his old books describing the route in the opposite direction. Now I've decided to break out the extreme rating for this walk, for a bushwalker who is on the wrong side of 50 this is a fairly serious undertaking, I actually think if I do it again in the future I'd do it in reverse as most of the sections where we really had to commit involved down climbs, I always find it a lot easier to climb up the short scrambles rather than descend them. Having said all that though I'd say that this day walk is definitely in my top ten in Victoria, it is a walk that you'll probably still be talking about on the drive home!
Relevant Posts.
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| Our last look back at Mount Stapylton and the Taipan Walls, from the top of Flat Rock. |
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| Its a nice easy way to finish to the walk descending Flat Rock, thats Mount Zero in the distance. |
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| After a very short road bash along Mount Zero Road.... |
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| We followed this old closed road for the last couple of hundred metres back to the Hollow Mountain Carpark. |
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