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Mt Bogong is the Highest Mountain in Victoria (1986m) and is a four and a half hour drive North East of Melbourne overlooking the township of Mt Beauty.
We left Melbourne at 2pm and arrived at the Mountain Creek Picnic and Camping Area at 6.40pm.
Mountain Creek is neice little wooded campsite which has a pit toilet, a beautiful running creek, picnic tables and fireplaces.
We located a nice level campsite next to the car and set up our tent and started preparing the evening meal.
I boiled water in readiness for our hike in the morning and we gazed at millions of stars (and the constant stream of jets flying between Melbourne & Sydney) directly overhead.
After a hot chocolate we settled down in our tent for a good nights sleep.
Day One Tuesday January 17
The forcast for the day was a sunny 28 degree day and we looked forward to amazing views of Snowy Mountains from the summit.
We woke early, had our breakfast and left the campsite at 7.45am.
The first part of the walk is 2km section along a four wheel drive track and crosses mountain creek 3 times (via little foot bridges). We had only been walking a few minutes when we came accroos the Hiking intentions book. There was a party of 18 people agead of us hiking up and down the Staircase Spur and there was a couple walking up the Staicase Spur and down the Eskdale Spur ahead of us. We filled in the intentions book and kept walking.
After 35 minutes we arrived at the track junction of the Staircase Spur. 2km down 6 to go to the summit.
The Staircase Spur is got it's name as it resembles a series of steps clibing up and over ridges all the way to the top of Mount Bogong (see picture below).
The next part of the walk was a constant climb through typical aussie bush and the higher we got the more snow gums we saw. There was a major bushfire through here 2 years ago and it was heartening to see the amount of regrowth occurring. We kept looking for our first view of the summit and were tricked a couple of times by West Peak some 86m lower than the summit of Mount Bogong.
We were looking forward to reaching the ruins of the Bivouac Hut (approximatley halfway up the mountain). I had read that the Bivouc on the Staircase and the Mitchell on the Eskdale spurs had been lost in the bushfires in 2004. Imagine our surprise when we came accross the Bivouac Hut still standing....
It had taken us three and a half hours to get here from Mountain Creek and we had climbed 840m. Time to have a bit of a rest and some food and drink. Although tired from the constant climbing we all felt good afte our 20m rest and pressed on at 11.35am
Three quarters of the way up we came upon masses of larvae on leaves of snowgums (see picture above). I think these will eventually turn out to be the famed Bogong Moth.
Not long after this we came out of the trees and onto open sloping grassland with wildflowers and the summit of Mt Bogong clearly in view for the first time 150m above us.
We also came across the start of the snowpoles used to guide skiers along the track in winter. These poles a re spaced 40m apart and were 3/4 the size of a telegraph pole.
We then had the climb up Hell Gap a steep rocky scramble before turning right to take the last gentle climb to the Summit Cairn.
Not long after this we came out of the trees and onto open sloping grassland with wildflowers and the summit of Mt Bogong clearly in view for the first time 150m above us.
We also came across the start of the snowpoles used to guide skiers along the track in winter. These poles a re spaced 40m apart and were 3/4 the size of a telegraph pole.
We then had the climb up Hell Gap a steep rocky scramble before turning right to take the last gentle climb to the Summit Cairn.
Unfortunately the fog and cold had descended on us half way up Hell Gap and when we reached the summit at 2pm we could see no more than 40m (1 snow pole). I thought about hanging around for a while to see if the fog cleared, but it was so cold (Liam couldn't stop shivering) I decided we would be better to start descending.
In the end this was the right decision. The fog did clear an hour after we left the summit but we arrived back at camp at 8.45 pm with only a couple of minutes of daylight left.
Other than sore feet (the boys) and very sore calf muscles (me) we made the round trip in 13 hours (2 hours longer than expected due to boys sore feet).
By the time I prepared
dinner and got the bedding out of the car it was 11.00pm and sleep was
a welcome distraction. We all woke at 7am the next morning.