The side trip up to Shelf Chasm this afternoon was another good one.
Waking to the sound of rain on the tent I had a quick look outside, which only convinced me to get back into the sleeping bag for awhile. The cloud was now down below the height of the summit so relaxing in the dry tent for awhile quickly became the best option as it would be a lot easier locating the descent route off Mt John Roberts with some visibility. After snoozing for another hour the rain had almost stopped so I decided to get up and cook breakfast and by the time my porridge was ready the cloud had lifted and I had great views again. After filling in the log book, I packed up the soggy tent and had a last look around before stumbling off to find the descent spur.
Can you tell that I've used this sleeping bag since the late 1980's? I'm thinking the colours might give it away a bit.
The clouds starting to lift, time to get going again.
Mt John Roberts summit cairn.
By the time I set off the cloud had lifted enough to make it easier to locate my descent spur.
The cloud had well and truly lifted by now and there was now patches of blue breaking through. This made for a very pleasant walk down to Wildflower Creek, I even managed to descend the correct spur where it split, and in less than an hour I was at the junction of Italowie Creek north branch and Wildflower Creek. Once I'd confirmed that the sometimes unreliable waterhole had some decent water I decided that I would pitch the tent and do a day walk out to Shelf Chasm in the afternoon.
Looking down towards Wortupa Pound and Red Hill as I started to drop off Mt John Roberts. I'd be walking across Wortupa Pound on my last day.
The rocky ramparts of Mt John Roberts.
Vulkatunha~Gammon Ranges National Park
Dropping off Mt John Roberts.
The clouds pretty well lifted now.
With the tent pitched and an early lunch eaten I was on my way upstream towards Shelf Chasm. The creek provided fairly easy walking until I had to turn off to the right on a side creek and from here on things got a little rougher. As the walls closed in the scenery got more spectacular though, I disturbed a Yellow Footed Rock Wallaby as I approached the Old Man of Italowie rock stack. Here the gorge turned back on itself, with a thin rock band separating upstream from downstream 50 metres below. Kind of hard to describe with my limited vocabulary however it looked very spectacular.
Heading up towards Shelf Chasm.
The Old Man of Italowie rock stack.
Shelf Chasm side trip.
From the Old Man of Italowie I had some easy walking for awhile before I got to a large waterfall blocking the gorge. There was no easy way over this one, I had to climb high up the cliff on the left side then traverse along an exposed ledge before trying to climb down to the creek bed at the top of the falls. Everything was OK until I reached the last 3 metre drop, I had to go over a negatively cambered ledge and feel around with my feet for a foot hold, unfortunately the ledge didn't really provide enough hand holds to support me while my feet fished around for support. After dangling over the edge a couple of times trying to find some grip that I was confident in, I once again decided that the risk probably wasn't worth the reward. It was only a 2 or 3 metre drop but I was a long way from help and on my own. So after reconciling in my mind that this was as far up Shelf Chasm that I would go on this trip I retreated to the spectacular bend where the gorge turned back on its self and sat there taking it all in for awhile.
Shelf Chasm side trip.
The blue sky certainly lifts my Feral mood, this is on the Shelf Chasm side trip.
There was a bit of water about on the Shelf Chasm walk.
After climbing around for awhile, trying to get a photo that would do the scene justice I slowly started to head back to the tent. Once on Italowie Creek north branch it was easy walking back to the waterhole. The weather had cleared by now and the clear blue skies promised a cold night. I spent the last hour of daylight reading and sipping hot chocolate as the bluffs around the camp turned a fiery red in the setting sun.
Late afternoon on the Shelf Chasm side trip.
Shelf Chasm
Dropping back down to camp in the late afternoon.
Lamb curry was on the menu tonight, topped off with freeze dried strawberry ice cream. As I sat there eating and taking in the scene around me I contemplated the reasons that I had turned back on two climbs so far on this walk. Was it that I was getting more conservative as I aged? Was it because I was a long way from help? Or would these scrambles always have exceeded my comfort level (at 120kg I'm not exactly built for rock climbing)? I'm still not exactly sure what the answer was however I suspect it was a combination of the reasons, still I was very content with my life as I crawled into my sleeping bag that night thinking of my Sam and all the adventures that hopefully lay ahead.
The late afternoon scenery from near camp kept me interested.
Cypress Pines and red bluffs... that'll do me!
The Dirt.
I walked around 11 kilometres and climbed around 360 metres today on what I'd call another hard day's walking. Over the 2 days of my Gammon Ranges adventure so far I've walked 17.5 kilometres and climbed 860 metres. Once again today's walking was all off track and once again it involved some serious scrambling, particularly on the Shelf Chasm side trip. I got water today from the waterhole at the junction of Wildflower Creek and North Branch Italowie Creek which is also where I camped, I also found good water on my side trip up towards Shelf Chasm. I used notes from the House of Chapmans book Bushwalking in Australia along with the Landsmap 1:50,000 Illinawortina map.
Relevant Posts.
This waterhole at the junction of Wildflower and North Branch Italowie Creeks is one of the least reliable of the water points.
Tonights camp was another nice one.
No comments:
Post a Comment