Mt Giles Walk, Mt Giles Foothills to Ormiston Gorge via Mt Giles, Western MacDonnell National Park - April 2018

Mt Sonder from the flank of Mt Giles.

After spending most of the night lying on top of my bivy bag only covered by a sheet due to the heat, we were up fairly early this morning to try and get as far up Mt Giles as possible before getting baked by the sun. Leaving most of our gear at our creek side camp we scoffed down a bit of breakfast, grabbed our now much lighter packs, and headed off. Thankfully with us climbing the southern flank of the mountain it meant that we would get a fair way up before feeling the full force of today’s heat.

Today started off pretty easy, for around five minutes!

Our climbing spur started between the second and third big gullies draining the southern side of the mountain. Having camped almost at the confluence of the two gullies we didn’t have far too go before we started climbing this morning. Looking up the spur this morning it was a bit of a daunting scene in front of us, after a hundred metres or so of gentle climbing the spur suddenly went almost vertical. Arriving at the rocky bluff that signalled the start of the steep stuff we edged our way slowly around it’s western side, finding a loose a rocky gully we climbed back onto the ridge crest above the bluff.

The shade was very welcoming this morning.

There is a lot of loose and crumbly rock to scramble up on this climb.

The views well and truly compensated for the effort though.

For the first hour of our climb it was almost a matter of repeating the technique we had used to get over the first buttress. We’d arrive at the next obstacle above us, stop, suss out the likely safest options and then slowly make our way a bit further up the mountain. Thankfully we were still climbing in the shade but we could see the sunlight creeping across the desert below us, getting closer and closer. The good news was that even though the climb was incredibly steep and loose the scenery was also incredibly good, the view up towards Mt Sonder and Mt Zeil over Ormiston Pound being particularly stunning.

Looking back down towards our camp near the confluence of the second and third gully.

Mt Sonder with Mt Zeil to the right in the distance.

The sun was creeping closer.

Eventually, after much clasping at spinifex (not recommended) we not only emerged out of the shadows into the sun, but we also topped out on a bit of a high knoll. The really good news was that we could now see the trig point on the summit, the really bad news was that it was still a fair way away. Even more depressing was that it was now obvious that we had a fairly substantial descent ahead of us through a high saddle, before we would even start the last scramble to the summit. At least the climbing had eased off now as we contoured around this high point before dropping into the narrow saddle.

Looking back across Ormiston Pound towards the gorge.

After twenty minutes relatively easy walking we dropped into the saddle and started our last climb to the summit of Mt Giles. It’s funny but what looked horrible from a distance actually wasn’t too bad when we actually got there, maybe it’s because we were concentrating so much on the loose rocky scramble but the whole climb seemed to go fairly quickly. Out last climb was no exception and I was a little surprised when I climbed over yet another small bluff and all of a sudden the summit cairn and trig was right in front of me, you beauty!

That's the summit, we've got to drop through that saddle first though.

Our last climb.

Hey, hey, we've just topped out on Mt Giles.

Dropping my pack I sat in the shade of the cairn and waited a couple of minutes for James to arrive, checking out the summit log book while I waited. Looking at the log book it appears that we were the first people up here since before last summer and judging by the scarcity of water I don’t think too many will be coming up this year unless it rains a bit. It had taken us around two and a half hours of fairly relentless climbing to make it onto the summit so it was nice to sit back in the meagre shade for a bit and take things in. As you would imagine the views from the top of Mt Giles are extensive, it was particularly interesting to trace the route of the Larapinta Trail for many, many kilometres, a walk I really want to revisit one day. There are actually a couple of very exposed campsites near the cairn on top of Mt Giles, our original plan had been to bivy up here but the hot temperatures had knocked us around enough without trying to lump all our gear up to the summit, maybe next time…the views at sunset and sunrise would be pretty special!

Just James and I and around a million flies!

The summit shot.

There were a couple of cleared spots to camp up here.

We probably spent around half an hour on the summit this morning, but due to the heat we’d decided to try and walk back to the ute this afternoon, so with that in mind we didn’t linger too long up on top. Our plan to walk out this afternoon started to look a bit doubtful though as we descended, for some reason my quads started to cramp very badly and my supplies of luke warm water weren’t doing a lot to stop the cramps. Now I might be a bit fat and unfit but my quads are pretty large, think a descent sized tree trunk and you’ll be close, so massaging the knots out of the muscles was almost as hard work as climbing the mountain had been. By the time James and I had got down the mountain I could barely walk 50 metres without cramps striking me down, the chances of me being able to walk 14 kilometres in the heat of the afternoon across country were slim to none from what I could work out.

Time to head back down.

This spur runs due south from the summit, it's a more direct climb but a longer walk to get to the bottom of it from camp.

I love this wild country.

It's amazing that these Cypress Pines can eke out an existence here, really.

Throwing all our gear from camp into our packs we headed into the slot canyon up to the water hole. Being such a steep sided gorge there was quite a bit of shade here and the cooler temperatures were welcome. Dropping the packs we filled up our water containers and settled in for a bit of a long break, the plan was to kick back here for an hour or so avoiding the hottest part of the day and then set off back to the ute in the middle of the afternoon. First up though I had to get rid of the cramps, so I spent the next hour and a half kicking back in the shade drinking as much as I could, cursing the fact that I’d taken my Gastrolyte out of my pack before leaving home!

I'm guessing this is Giles Spring?

The water was seeping out of the rock face.

Yeah, I only post the most flattering photos on my blog! Resting in the shade at the spring. I've got to thank James for  the photos featuring me in the last couple of posts.

Eventually it was time to head back out into the heat and set off for Ormiston Gorge.

By 3pm, with the heat going out of the day a bit we figured it was time to start our long walk back to Ormiston Gorge. Dropping down out of the gorge I was happy enough to find that my cramps seemed to have settled down a bit, a fact confirmed as we climbed out of the gully and then across another one before dropping down the long ridge back down to the sandy Ormiston Creek. I was taking it pretty easy at this stage and James was a little ahead of me when we dropped into the dry creek bed, when I arrived I found him sitting on a rock in the creek bed, no worries I thought he’s just resting…..yeah, nah! Actually we had another problem. The soles of James’ boots were both delaminating, with another 6 or 7 kilometres of jagged hard dry and rough ground to cover before we’d meet anything resembling a track this was a fairly serious problem. Gaffer tape was the first option but that only lasted a couple of hundred metres before the rough ground pulled it off, bugger. The next option was to cannibalise James’ closed cell foam yoga mat, cutting the strap off and tying up the sole of his boot, I wasn’t overly confident but it was about all we could do. Climbing away from Ormiston Creek I couldn’t help glancing at James’ gear to work out how much more of his gear we could cannibalise to keep his boots alive:)

It was around 3pm when we finally left the base of Mt Giles.

Ormiston Creek

This wasn't ideal....

At this stage I was eyeing the rest of James' gear off to see what else we could sacrifice to keep his boots together.

Yep, I had my doubts!

Now I suppose I could regale you with tales of our afternoons adventure, frolicking our way across Ormiston Pound back to Ormiston Gorge….or I could tell you the truth. The walk back across Ormiston Pound was hard work this afternoon, after a fairly solid workout climbing Mt Giles that morning our reserves were already running fairly low and the spinifex, rough and rocky ground, not to mention the heat effectively finished us off. Navigation was fairly easy though as all we had to do was walk directly into the hot afternoon setting sun all the way, doh! Once again we ended up walking from tree to tree, utilising any meagre bits of shade on offer as we inched our way closer to the formed track of the Ormiston Pound Walk.

There wasn't a lot of frolicking going on this afternoon.

Mt Giles is slowly receding into the distance.

With the sun well and truly dropped down behind the western walls of Ormiston Pound we shuffled our last few metres to intersect with the track. Thankfully we’d managed to make the formed track just before night had overtaken the twilight, it would of been a real pain in the arse walking across here off piste by headlamp, it had been hard enough to pick the areas with less spinifex when we could see into the distance. Meeting the track meant that the rest of the walk back to the ute could be easily enough completed in the dark so it was time to pull up a rock and kick back for a bit of an extended break. It was close to 7pm by the time we set again back towards the car park at Ormiston Gorge, we managed to get up to the lookout using the moon and stars for illumination but then, as the track dropped and the hills closed in, it was time to turn on the headlamps for the last half an hour or so back to the ute. We were two very hot, smelly and tired walkers that trudged into the Ormiston Car Park just after 8pm that night, but gee we felt good!

We pushed on a bit to try and make the formed Ormiston Pound Track before it got totally dark.

Today was a tough days walking!

Mt Giles, glowing in the setting sun.

The Dirt.
We walked around 23 kilometres today and climbed 1200 metres on what was a fairly extreme days walking. We got our water today from the second big gully draining the south face of Mt Giles, it’s identified as probably the largest slot canyon on the south side. As I mentioned in the post about the first day, there is a bit of information floating around about this walk. Chapman, Daly have both published walking notes. The NT Parks people have a good download available online and the blog Notes From a Trail Head has some excellent information on it.

Relevant Posts.
Ormiston Gorge, Western MacDonnell National Park, 2015.
Larapinta Trail, Western MacDonnell National Park, 2007.
Mt Giles Walk, Day 1, Western MacDonnell National Park, 2018.

We were less than a kilometre from the formed track by the time the sun dipped below the western wall of Ormiston Pound.

We were aiming for that little shark tooth shaped hill, that's the spot we be back on a formed track.

8pm and we've just rocked up a the Ormiston Gorge Car Park, we were both pretty shattered!