Mt Beerwah Summit, Glass House Mountains National Park - December 2006

Being in the middle of summer there weren't too many locals out and about on the climb.

It’s the time of the year again where I head off on a holiday with my long suffering partner. Part of the deal that we’ve got is that she will tolerate me traipsing around the country and indeed the world, so long as we go on a flash holiday together once every year or so. As far as the blog goes that means that I won’t have much in the way of new walks to write up for the next month or so, although I might knock up a post or two about places we visit on our trip. I have kept a couple of relatively new posts up my sleeve, but for the most part the next few weeks will feature dodgy photos like these ones, straight out of my extensive Feral archives. The thing with these old photos is that not only are they taken on very dodgy digital cameras but they were also taken well before the blog was even a possibility (was blogger ever around back in the early 2000’s?). Anyway, enough of my problems, this is the somewhat truncated story of my second attempt to climb Mt Beerwah in Queensland’s Glass House Mountains.

This lookout marked the start of the serious stuff.

As I said this was my second attempt to climb this mountain, my first attempt ended in a dismal failure when I arrived at the steep slab section and it started to lightly rain, with my walking boots giving my next to no traction on the smooth slab there was no way I was going any further that day. With the weather today baking hot and clear and with me shod in an old pair of Dunlop Volleys, I was fairly confident that I would be able to get a little higher than my first visit. After leaving the car park the very easy benched track heads towards the cliff line and a bit of a tourist lookout. Arriving at the lookout the track appears to stop as the slab guarding the summit tower above, yep I’d arrived at what is probably the crux of the climb. This initial slab is a very committed scramble, the slab is very steep with little in the way of hand and foot holds to aid progress. Thankfully my sticky Dunlop Volleys provided enough friction to allow me to carefully ease my way up, but I was certainly concentrating hard.

The slab behind me is probably the steepest part of the climb.

Once up the first slab I followed a sand ledge before heading up another slab. The higher I got the ‘easier’ the climbing got and soon I arrived at the tree line and the route headed towards the base of the summit cliffs. The next section had me walking under the overhanging cliffs as I made my way around the cliff line to pick the summit crest. Once above the cliffs I was suddenly walking through low heath and grass trees as I made my way up the stoney track for the last few hundred metres to the actual summit. The 556 metre summit of Mt Beewah allows for great views, not only of the surrounding Glass House Mountains but also out towards Pumicestone Passage and Bribie Island.

I was heading up a series of these slabs towards the overhanging cliffs buttressing the summit.

Once at the caves the walking got pretty easy.

The overhangs are a good spot to get out of the sun for awhile.

As is usual for me on these scrambles there is always a bit of apprehension as I take in the views from the summits, when the scrambling is fairly committing like on Mt Beerwah I’ve always got the descent in the back of my mind. Thankfully the descent wasn’t too bad but the slabs near the bottom required a lot of concentration to get down safely. Once I was down safely and off the steep slabs however I got that euphoric feeling that I’d missed a little up on the summit, scrambling is like that for me.

The view out towards Bribie Island.

The Glass House Mountains.

The Dirt.
I walked around 2.6 kilometres and climbed around 450 metres on this hard stroll, I’m guessing. There is a lot of stuff floating around the inter web about this climb so it shouldn’t be too hard to find information, although a lot of the stuff I found played down the difficulty of the climb a fair bit I thought, take it from someone who has done a lot of scrambling, this climb deserves respect, don’t even think of trying it in wet weather or in hard soled shoes. The only published walking notes that I’m aware of are by Mr & Mrs Daly out of their Take A Walk in South-East Queensland book.

Relevant Posts.
Hells Gates & Alexandria Bay, Noosa National Park, 2005.
Forest Lakes Hiking Trail, Fraser Island National Park, 2002.
Simpson Falls & Eugenia Circuit, Brisbane Forest Park, 2017.

The Glass House Mountains National Park is a bit of a fragmented National Park. The small parcels of land featuring the mountains are separated by farm land and forestry.