Mount Bogong

New Year's Hike (Day 1)

I've bought the snow shoes, tested them out, now all I need is an adventurous winter walk. With this in mind I set off up Mt Bogong over the Christmas break (1997) to check out one such walk.

My 3 1/2 day walk over the New Year turned out to be one of those that go down in the record books as "an experience". A number of things went wrong, some went right and others were just "experiences". The original plan was to drive up in the evening, walk up at night for sunrise and then continue exploring from there. When I stopped at Ovens at 12:30am to check the map, my engine died and the plan suddenly changed. I decided to pity the RACV man and sleep in the car, and ring him in the morning. My car problem turned out to be a broken wire coming from the battery and by the time it was replaced and I drove to the Mt Creek camp ground (after searching for an alternative track up the mountain) it was lunch time. The plan had then changed to ascending "The Staircase", explore around the top and return the same way.

As I put on my pack and camera bag I couldn't help but feel that I had never carried a pack this heavy before and it felt just a little too heavy. "Naaaah, she'll be right!" I knew it would be slow and difficult but I would make it. Allowing for breaks and slow walking I estimated the 6km walk would take between 6 - 7 hours. I made the turn off from the 4WD track and headed up....... and up........and up. Despite a few vegetation changes the track seemed to be never ending and I was bound to see Bivouac Hut (approx. half way) any moment.

After 4 hours I began to doubt that I was going to make it all the way to the top that day. The forest had become a sea of tree trunks, with no sign of the top of the ridge. Half an hour later I asked another walker on his way down how far it was to the Hut. He had been walking for precisely 10 minutes, but since I had a pack on it would probably take me 20 minutes. An hour later I arrived at Bivouac Hut and began to look for a camp site as it was clear that I was never going to make it without making my pack lighter. 5 1/2 hours for 3km on a walking track was not a good sign.

On the positive side I got the pick of the campsites (the hut was very musty) and was soon joined by two other couples and two guys arrived at dusk. At first they all sympathised with me for carrying so much weight until I pulled out two cans of lamb curry for dinner and a small can of peaches for desert. OK so it was all self inflicted and I had just over estimated how much weight I could carry. But you never know your limits until you exceed them. My philosophy is that if I go hiking I always carry the same weight. If it's a short walk I just have better food than on a long walk. I was also uncertain about the availability of water and had opted for carrying 6 litres. This soon dropped to 3 litres.

The Hut was surrounded by flowers and I made the most of the calm conditions to try the 350mm lens for some macro photography. With a closest focus of 5m you could say it has an excellent working distance, but finding 5m of uninterrrupted space is not as easy as it might seem, not to mention waiting for perfect calm for the 1/2 second exposure time. The last shot was with my 35mm camera at 1:2.