Attemt on the peaks 2

The 20-ish peak challenge is a challange to climb all of the Australian peaks over 2000m. This is possible as they are all in the same area of New South Wales, spread over a span of ~60km. 

The Plan

This time we were starting high at Charlottes Pass, heading out to the Ramshead range via Mt Stillwell, before going up to Kosi and then finishing the Main Range track, before heading North to Jagungal and Gungarten, and then returning from Guthega through the Perisher mountains.


The day before

We drove up after work with the car packed, camping at Charlottes to get an early, but not so unreasonable start as the previous attempt.

The day

We started at 8am after a quick breakfast of gels and bars. We made good progress up through the Stillwells, and then dropped back down to the Kosciuszko Road. We headed up the road to Rawsons pass, turning off towards Thredbo and jogging out along the smooth, raised footpath.

After a kilometer or so we veered off the main road to pick up the 5 Ramshead mountains. We returned by a similar route, but avoiding the peaks, before returning up the track. We weren't making good time at this point, and the weather was starting to turn cold, we decided to go for Kosi anyway and make a decision from there.

On the descent from Kosi we called an end, there was no way that we would finish the loop and get back below the tree line before it got really cold, and the cloud cover meant that the full moon would be covered, and the landscape hard to see, reducing our ability to navgate. We walked back to Charlottes, finishing the last kilometer in the dark.

Summary:


  •  9 peaks, 
  • 1600m elevation gain and loss
  • 13:07 hours, 
  • 38 Km's
  • movescount move


The overwhelming conclusions were that the rough ground slowed Veronica down a lot, reducing our pace drastically, and making the proposed route a bit far fetched. We had enough food this time, but the weather wasn't ideal, we could have improved the pace a little by heading direct from Stillwell to the ramsheads, cutting a few kilometers off, and avoiding an extra few hundred meters of elevation gain and loss.

We need to start earlier, the 5AM start should see the easy navigation to the Stilwells completed in the dark, and much of the traverse across to the Ramsheads. The Ramsheads and Kosi would hopefully fall by afternoon, leaving half a day to complete the rest of the loop, before heading North once night falls, leaving the peaks to be picked up on the daylight return if necessary.






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