Mt Juliet, Yarra Ranges National Park - July 2018

This was the story of today's walk really.

I’ve driven past the start of this walk literally 100’s of times over the decades but I’ve never got around to pulling over and actually climbing this mountain. My interest was again piqued recently when Mr Fiasco featured it on his great blog, I remember commenting that the summit cairn would look good with a dusting of fresh snow. So…with some fairly average weather predicted and the snow level down to the 900 metres I figured that this was my chance to climb this 1085 metre mountain (actually the signpost on top of the mountain says its a little higher than my map) and maybe get to see the cairn covered in snow.

This all looks pretty easy.

Arriving at the tiny informal car park beside the Maroondah Highway at 8am this morning I wasn’t surprised to find no other cars about. After pulling on my boots and locking the ute I set off the deceptively easy Road 3, under a grey brooding sky. To be honest though the weather was a lot better than I’d hoped for, the forecast rain hadn’t really arrived and wandering up Road 3 I was getting a little hot in my wet weather gear. Road 3 heads up a valley through the restricted Maroondah Dam Catchment Area, the only place you are able to walk here is along this track and you have to return the same way.

Like a lot of these old closed roads in the Maroondah Dam Catchment, Road 3 makes for good walking.

Road 3 doesn’t sound very inspiring but it’s a little better than maybe imagined, the towering Mountain Ash forest that line the grassy firebreak are simply stunning, even more so for the fact that these forests were totally wiped out back in 1939. Twenty minutes after leaving the ute though it was time to leave the wide Road 3 and start up the walking track towards Mt Juliet. Like the road, the walking track starts off innocently enough climbing only marginally steeper than the road initially. Gaining a little height I was now able to look back over my shoulder and see some very dark clouds closing in on me from the direction of Mt St Leonard, maybe I’d get my hoped for snow after all.

The walking track is well sign posted.

Mt Juliet Walking Track.

I started to get a few glimpses through the trees as I climbed, but it's not really a walk to do if you are after long range vistas.

There were a few trees down but for the most part the track was clear.

Thankfully the walking track was fairly clear of encroaching scrub as it wasn’t long before the dark clouds caught up with me and I was now climbing in fairly solid rain. The walking track actually levelled off for a hundred metres or so at one stage and I remember thinking to myself that this wasn’t a good omen, with over 900 metres to climb over around 4 kilometres I’d probably already walked 2 kilometres and only gained 100 metres or so, I was starting to wonder just how steep the next couple of kilometres would be. Trudging upwards I didn’t have to wait very long to find out how steep things would get, my short level section finished and I was suddenly edging my way up what appeared to be a muddy wall.

No it's not a black and white photo.

Climbing steeply into the sleet.

Needless to say there was a lot of stops on this climb, although with the DSLR safely stashed in it’s dry bag for most of the walk the photos were mostly taken with my little water proof camera, so the quality is nothing to shout about. This climb was one of the slipperiest walks that I ever done, the slick muddy track now awash with water, for anyone who’s ever walked the Kokoda Track then the steepness and grip co-efficient of this track this morning was pretty similar to Kokoda, actually I couldn’t help think that this walk would be good training before a trip to Papua New Guinea.

If you squint you might make out the sleet against the dark bark on the tree.

Slogging ever upwards I eventually started to pass through some sleety showers and by the time the track eventually levelled off there was proper grown up snow showers passing through, unfortunately the snow wasn’t settling though. A few minutes after the gradient finally eased off I arriver at the summit cairn and while there was a little snow coating the moss covered rocks on the cairn it was pretty meagre really. Now I’d climbed over 900 metres to see some snow so I decided as the day was still early I’d stop for awhile and see if the passing snow shower would get a bit heavier, sitting down on the lee side of the cairn I settled into wait for awhile.

There wasn't much snow but it was bloody cold and wet.

Eventually, with hypothermia a real chance, I decided that enough was enough and it was time to shoulder my pack and start my return journey. Being fairly wet and miserable by now my mood wasn’t helped by the need to descend so slowly on the steep ground, even with my cat like reflexes (dead cat, that is) I still managed to go arse over a couple of times on the descent, although with the track being so steep I didn’t have far to fall. With the feeling slowly returning to my fingers the track eventually started to level out a bit and at the same time the weather start to improve a little, the snow having given way to sleet, then rain, and now just the occasional shower.

I waited in vain on the summit for at least 30 minutes hoping that the sleet would turn to snow.

Going back down was easier than the climb, but only marginally so.

Arriving back down at Road 3 the walk was as good as over as I set off down towards the car park. Back on the wide dirt road I was once again able to relax and enjoy the forest a little, the walk down here largely runs parallel to Mosquito Creek but unfortunately it’s well hidden in the scrub and you wouldn’t even know it was there. The other thing that you wouldn’t know is close by is the busy Maroondah Highway, it was only really when I was 100 metres or so from the ute that I started to hear the traffic. Arriving back at the ute at 12:30 I quickly changed out of my wet gear and headed down to Healesville for a hot coffee, happy enough after another nice walk, although I’ll still have to go back one day and see that cairn covered in snow.

There wasn't a lot of grip on this stuff.

I've just emerged out of the scrub back onto Road 3.

The Dirt.
I walked around 8 kilometres and climbed 943 metres on this medium-hard grade walk. While the walk is only short it is very steep, the closer to the summit the steeper it gets. The ground is mostly dirt so in wet conditions it can get very muddy and slippery. Unfortunately there is no real view from the summit (so I’m told, all I could see was cloud today) but there are a few glimpses through the trees in the direction of Mt St Leonard on the climb. The only published notes that I know of for this walk are out of John & Marion Siseman’s old book Melbourne’s Mountains, the book dates back to 1993 though and is well out of print. To be honest though you shouldn’t really get lost on this stroll, all you have to do is retrace your outward route.

Relevant Posts.
Monda Track, Toolangi State Forest, 2017.
Morleys Track, Yarra Ranges National Park, 2017.
Mt St Leonard, Yarra Ranges National Park, 2015.

Road 3

Another nice walk coming quickly coming to it's end.....I've got unfinished business on Mt Juliet though.