Fainter Falls Walk, Alpine National Park - March 2021

Fainter Falls.

As we were heading home after a long weekend up at Falls Creek, Sam and drove past the trail head for the Fainter Falls walk. Never being one to waste the opportunity to visit a spot that I'd never checked before I decided to stop and stretch my legs a little. Sam was pretty content to stay in the relative comfort of the ute this morning so I grabbed my pack and set off on this short walk on my own.

The well signposted track heads off from the side of there Bogong High Plains Road.

The well signposted track headed bush on the opposite side of the road to the large carpark and initially climbed fairly solidly. First off I climbed high above the Bogong High Plains Road before the track left the vicinity of the road and started climbing fairly gently up the valley of Fainter Creek. After ten minutes or so I came to the first of three lookouts that the walk features, this lookout giving me a nice look up stream along Fainter Creek which had a reasonably good flow of water coming down after some decent falls of rain recently. After leaving the first lookout I continued up the valley again, the track now benched into the steep hillside high above the cascading creek. After passing through a couple of sections of track that had obviously been wiped out in a landslip in the fairly recent past, I made the very short detour to check out the second lookout... and got my first look at the fairly impressive Fainter Falls in the distance.

After an initial climb the track levels off for awhile.

Heading up the valley with Fainter Creek below.

Fainter Creek from the first lookout.

On the way to the second lookout the track got a little skinny in spots (or maybe I'm just too fat!).

Leaving the second lookout the walk got a little more rugged as firstly I dropped down a series of steep steps to cross over Fainter Creek at the spot where it converges with Pretty Valley Creek. After crossing the creek the track climbed fairly steeply up a long section of stone steps to the best lookout of the day. From this third lookout Fainter Falls was fairly close by, the rushing white water of the waterfall now framed by lush ferns. After enjoying this peaceful spot for awhile I figured that I'd better start heading back down to Sam. Being a retrace type of stroll my return walk didn't hold a great deal of surprises this morning although I did drop down to water level on a short side trip to check out the creek as it rushed downstream beneath the lush canopy of ferns and bracken.

Fainter Falls from the second lookout.

Looking upstream along Pretty Valley Creek - Fainter Creek comes in here on the left.

Fainter Falls from the third lookout.

Fainter Creek near the confluence with Pretty Valley Creek.

Fainter Creek.

The Dirt.

According to my GPS I walked around 2 kilometres and climbed 91 metres on this easy stroll. As far as I know there aren't any published hard copy notes for this walk, there is a bit of perfunctory information floating around the internet about the walk. Having said that this walk doesn't really require in depth notes or detailed maps as once you are on the track it would be pretty hard to go too far wrong. Now while I've said this is an easy walk there are a lot of particularly steep steps towards the far end of the walk that may cause issues for some people. 

Relevant Posts.

Falls Creek Waterfall Walk, 2021.

Ropers Lookout Walk, Alpine National Park, 2021.

There are quite a few steps on this walk - although they are mostly all after the second lookout.

It looks like this track is occasionally wiped out by landslips - well that's a Feral observation anyway.

Dropping back down to the ute the weather was about to turn a little average.

Jumping into the ute Sam and I enjoyed a fairly wet and wild drive back to Melbourne today.