Aboriginal Name - Bogong comes from the Yiatmathong language
Mount Bogong is ages away. We spent 6 hours driving and maybe 2 hours getting pies, vacuum-packed curries and petrol before reaching the Mountain Creek trailhead for Mount Bogong, just outside of Tawonga.
At 1986 metres above sea level, Mount Bogong is Victoria’s highest peak. It used to be the summer spot for indigenous clans from all around the Victorian high country down to the Murray River. Each year, the groups would come together for big corroborees at the base of the mountain, settle disputes, sort out partnerships, do some trade and get permission from the Yiamathong people to climb to the summit. They’d then all climb up together and camp just below the tree line, having Bogong moth feasts and waiting for the summer heat to pass.
We only had six packs of Maharajah’s Choice to feast on, so after a night with a campfire and a couple of tinnies at the Mountain Creek campgrounds, we set out for the Staircase Spur trail. This trail is about 8 kilometres. You follow the 4WD track that follows the creek through alpine ash, stringy barks and fern forests until you hit the path that turns sharply right and upwards into the bush.
This path leads through peppermint gums and brackeny undergrowth, up gruelling switchbacks and brutal clay steps. The track is tough; awaken your inner mongrel. Kes’s temporal arteries nearly erupted and I wondered if I could just turn around and lose it all over a game of two-up in the Tawonga RSL. Forget drop punting the whole bag of scroggin off the mountain and look at the views. The mountain ash, blue gums and scrubby undergrowth are interspersed with the towering skeletons from earlier bushfires. The ranges roll outwards forever. If the weather’s warm, the whole forest has that hot eucalypt smell and you can see skinks underfoot.
Halfway up, there’s a spot called Bivouac Hut in amongst the blue gums. There’s a drop dunny there, as well as a small hut with emergency fire supplies and an echoey dry water tank. The next water source is beyond the summit at Cleve Cole Hut, so bring at least 2 litres if you’re just doing a summit day hike.
The trail changes here, from dense acacia trees to open grasslands and granite boulders. The path is marked by ski-trail posts. Some of them are timber and others are made of steel indented with holes so they hum in the high alpine winds, helping skiers to navigate through whiteouts. There’s a memorial cairn here, too.
In 1943, two men and a woman were hiking over the exposed peak plateau of Mount Bogong, squinting through the fog for the old Summit Hut as the weather whitened. Having long ditched their skis, they stumbled over alpine shrubs and cold, slippery rocks, the only constellations in a vast colourless plain. Exhausted, the two guys collapsed together and passed a flask of brandy between themselves until their bodies went cold. The woman continued on, frantic with hypothermia, until she slipped on a sheet of ice and fell down a ravine to her death. The path to the summit is just a bit further over the ridge.
Standing at the summit cairn, it’s hard to believe you’re on top of the tallest mountain in the Victorian Alps – Mount Beauty, Feathertop, Buller and Buffalo seem like they’re eye to eye. It took us about 5 hours to get here and you can turn around and walk straight down again via the same route or the Eskdale Spur that forks off from the summit ridge. If you want to stay overnight, continue 3 kilometres east to the sheltered Camp Valley.
Walk across the bald summit ridge over blue alpine grasses and heathland. There were lots of alpine everlastings in flower, papery yellow daisies. Steep drops on either side give way to the ridges of surrounding ranges, with Falls Creek just ahead. A treeline of snowgums marks the descent from the ridge and from here a path leads to Cleve Cole Hut and a campground with running spring water, a shower and drop toilets.
The Cleve Cole Memorial Hut is a stone lodge with bunks and foam mattresses. Read the rules as stated by Bogong Jack. Set up camp a little further up from the hut to see the best sunset and sunrise, and if you still have daylight, walk about 20 minutes down the valley to the east of the creek to Howman’s Falls. There’s a couple of swimming holes here and a waterfall that drops off so steeply ahead you can’t see it. The trail here connects with the Australian Alps Walking Track.
In the morning, we walked down in about half the time. We discussed animal totems. Kes: mountain goat. Phil: crow. Me: some kind of ratty and anxious marsupial. Maybe a pademelon or potoroo.
We took a different route called Tree Fern Walk from the bottom of Staircase Spur back to Mountain Creek campground. There’s a network of short paths here, like Black Cockatoo Walk and Peppermint Walk, but we were too bushed and it’d been days since we’d had a pie.
by Pip Jones
2015
LFRF acknowledges all the Traditional Owners of the land [or country] and pay our respects to the Elders, past and present of all of Victoria and urges you to please do the same.
