AAWT winter traverse - Episode 33 (Bimberi)
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- Опубліковано 23 вер 2019
- Day 33. We got away early and set ourselves an ambitious goal for today of getting to and climbing the Australian Capital Territory’s highest peak. Initially there were lots of brumbies out whilst the walking was straightforward and relatively easy. By 12:15pm we stopped for our earliest lunch yet having already walked 20km. We then set off for beautiful Oldfields Hut and Murray’s Gap, about 8 km away, where we planned to camp.
It was almost 4:30pm by the time we had set up our tent and departed for an evening ascent of Bimberi Peak. The guidebook suggested 3 hours for the 6km return trip and 400 metre ascent but we only had 2 hours at most of light remaining. So we were expecting a slight challenge (& we weren’t disappointed). After 750m it was time to put skis and skins on. It was tough conditions with only 30-40cm of snow and lots of trees and scrub to get around. We really wanted to make it the summit by sunset but just missed it by 5 minutes or so. Fortunately the colours and light afterwards were beautiful.
The ski back down under torchlight was hairy and definitely a challenge but also fun. We surprisingly managed to ski down through all the trees and scrub and almost back to the very edge of the snowline. In the end the guidebook was spot on for the time it took us. If we hadn’t carried our skis from Kiandra though we suspect it would have taken us twice the time to ascend and descend as it did. So from our perspective it was worth carrying our skis on our packs for the 105km 😁
Regarding the ski carry, I reckon there's something 'right' about having the ski gear with you for the whole trip anyway 🙂.
Bimberi Peak is a special place. I camped there with 3 friends in 1986 to observe Halley's Comet. Still a vivid memory.
Thankyou so much Mark and Andy for making and sharing this record of your fantastic adventure.
I started playing your clips on the home TV. The kids are glued to it and we have replayed numerous times (especially Gartners as my son and I were there three weeks ago). You should think about a TV series.
Congratulations! Epic trip!
It was a fantastic trip
Did you find the navigation difficult? i.e track marks difficult to find or having to navigate with a compass?
Hi Joe. Most of the time it was very straightforward although there were a couple of parts where it was difficult to discern where the actual track was. This was mostly due to heavy snow in thickly treed areas such as coming out of the Black River valley. Without snow it would have been fine. For us, with the weather we had and a metre of snow on the ground, our hardest nav was both approaching Howitt and then crossing it in complete whiteout conditions as it got dark. Generally though it was straightforward and we simply used the guidebook for 95% of it. We copied the guidebook notes with maps onto NeverTear water resistant (essentially waterproof) paper and carried them in our pockets. Occasionally we checked our GPS and we rarely used a compass. That said, the previous time we crossed the Main Range we had whiteout conditions and had to heavily use our maps and compass. We had a least half of the AAWT GPS tracks pre-loaded onto a GPS which was useful.
I like the Darth Vader behind the camera. Cool effect.