1 January 2008
Day 3 post 2 - Dargo / Bogong High Pains / Mt Feathertop Expedition 2007 and 2008
Posted by Mick under: 2008; 20080101 Dargo & Bogong High Plains; Expeditions; Hiking / Walking; Photos .
20080101 1140hrs - Mt Feathertop (1,922m)
Around four hours of walking through some spectacular terrain and here i finally sit, on the top of Victoria’s second highest mountain, Mt Feathertop at 1,922m.
The walk on the Razorback track crosses over so many highpoints and traverses rocky terrain, snow gum forest, alpine grass and some really steep sections. I took it pretty easy walking in and stopped quite often to take photos. I also crossed paths a few time with an “older” group of around six walkers heading in the same direction along with a number of people heading back to Diamantina Hut who had spent New Years eve camped out at the Federation Hut site, including a Park Ranger.
I took the “longer” way in at the start and crossed over Bon Accord before falling into the rhythm of going down hillsides, then around hillsides, then up hillsides before starting the process all over again. It started to warm up about an hour into the walk and I packed my North Face Blackhawk windwall and reverted to a trusty Polypro thermal. It’s a little bit warmer with the polypro on in the sun, but as you can round a corner and run headfirst into a strong cool breeze at any moment up in the alpine region, i find that i don’t mind a bit of extra warmth especially as the polypro material wicks the sweat away pretty quickly. I remember visiting the Swiss Alps in 1992 and climbing /walking around the Great St Bernard Pass and up to around 3,000m on the Matterhorn and my trusty polypros of the time worked like a dream.
I’d also loaded up new Mammut Flight 35 litre pack to see how it would handle the trip as a bit of a road test for a longer (and higher) walk I intend to do soon. The other major new piece of equipment i was wearing was my Frillneck Urban Turban which worked really well at keeping the sun of but probably kept me a bit to warm. I won’t go into to much detail about equipment as i’ll get around to doing an equipment review after the expedition.
After doing the last long and steep climb from the ridge up to the top of Mt Feathertop, and taking in the joy of having reached the peak, I took a bundle a photos of all the glorious mountains you can see from up here which include major peaks such as; Mt Bogong and the Bogong Massif, Mt Fainter, Mt Fainter South, The Niggerhead, Mt McKay, Mt Cope, Mt Loch, Mt Hotham, Mt Saint Bernard (not the one in Switzerland), the Blue Rag Trip point and Mt Buffalo. You can also see right over onto the Dargo and Howitt High Plains areas as well.
While i was sitting down and having some lunch the next thing you really notice is the insect life going absolutely crazy up here…there were so many varieties (and since i’m not really an insect expert) it’s to hard to name them all.
1221 hrs - While the breeze up here is quite nice, it’s also very hot as the sun is beating down so i might start heading down the track.
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