So you can imagine my excitement when I found out he went elsewhere that weekend and was in fact going up to Mt Bogong last weekend. I was stoked.
At 1986m, Mt Bogong is placed amongst Victoria's premier ski fields in the Alpine National Parks.
There are a couple routes up to Bogong peak but the most direct and difficult route is the Staircase Spur track. Sam is an experienced adventurer and I have been tracking some good work recently so we were really keen to give the Staircase Spur a strong effort. No slacking!
Having left home at 4am and arriving at the car park around 10am we were ready to get stuck into the mountain. The car park is located at about 360m so the overall climb ahead of us was around 1625m over an 8km trail. At the low altitude the thermal underwear was a little over kill but we knew as we ascended they would come in handy. It was still a pain to be climbing and sweating like mad. I had to remove my glasses as they were useless with all the sweat.
About an hour and a half walking along your standard dirt and rock trails we started to get into the snow. We came across a Scout group descending that had gone a distance ahead but had now given up and were returning as the sunny day was melting the snowy tree tops and they had been struck with large chunks of falling snow. We laughed and continued. Wasn't so funny a half hour later when we copped a couple ourselves. If was fairly entertaining though as you would hear some of the big ones crash right beside you and you'd think to yourself....that would have stung. By this time we had already stripped off the jackets and light jumpers we had departed with and were down to t-shirts. Cold wet snow falling 30m onto flesh wasn't devastating but there was a certain sting to it!
Below you will see the swollen result of a large chunk of snow crashing onto my left bicep.... or is that always how my arm looks! Anyways...
As we continued to ascend the snow cover continued to thicken so we finally decided to strap on the snow shoes. Honestly this was the perfect day for a winter hike. The sun came out, there was barely a breeze and the snow was fresh powder.
The Climbing didn't get an easier. As we edged closer to the summit the rate of ascent increased dramatically and the weather dropped degrees and visibility virtually in minutes. The below photo is Sam blazing the trail. We could see on the opposite peak (when the sky cleared) a number of other people backcountry skiing.
By this stage I was cooked. Sam seemed to still have plenty in the engine, no surprises there. The man is a machine. I was following in his tracks pretty closely and as we could see the summit and started our final climb I noticed his tracks, and also mine that followed became shorter under foot. In other words, each step was really only 6-8 inches at a time. The weigh of our legs and the aggressive incline just wouldn't allow regular steps. Inches at a time we ground our way to the summit. The summit was blowing a gail and the temperature was really cold now. Keep in mind we had stripped down to t-shirts and were sweating so much that we didn't want to put on thick layers as we climbed so we only had our outer shells over t-shirts. We spent the first 5 minutes on the summit getting dressed appropriately...which involved taking off the jackets to get the layers on underneath... Cold, oh yeah!
But we made it, happy & health. The photos at the top makes it worth the journey. Sam still had energy to climb the ice block, I was happy to just be standing. Good on yah Sam, like I said.... your a champ.
At first I had a thought of camping right there. The wind was just cutting right through us so we decided to head down a peak or 2 and hope for clearer conditions. So glad we did. We had great view back toward Mt Bogong peak, a Sunset that stayed with us till about 7:30pm which is easily an hour later than normal and overall just really great conditions for camping out.
As we made some food and set up camp the thermometer read -11 degrees .... which we thought was probably off by a couple. Didn't feel a degree colder than -10 !
While preparing dinner we took some photos, had a good chat and enjoyed our surroundings. As night fell there was really no reason to stay up and later than we needed too. So with the sense of accomplishment and delight in the day that had been we closed up the tents and tried to get some sleep.
It got colder through the night but we both are alive to tell our tale. Part II will be the descent.... stay tuned.
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