Climbing towards the Gudgenby summit

Tuesday 19 September: Mt Gudgenby and beyond – L/R. Most people have been to the summit of Mt Gudgenby, but most do not venture to the magnificent rock stacks north of the summit. We will be going to both to locate two geocaches GC1KJHZ Base Camp – Gudgenby and GC16F0A Granite Dome – Gudgenby. Some thick scrub and some granite scrambling involved. About 20 kilometres in distance and 900 metres of climbing. Early start. Map: Yaouk. Leader: Roger E. Transport: $40.00. per car. Limit: 8.

Further Information

The second CBC trip to this destination in 4 days.

Summary

Distance: 17.4km | Climb: 920m | Time: 7.10am – 4.00pm (8hrs 50mins), including 50 mins of breaks plus caching time | Grading: L/R; H(14)

Photographs

Photographs are available, where you can start a large sized slideshow.

Video

Waypoint and Track Files

Download the .gpx file. (Right click, Save Link As…, Save – if you want to use it.)
To use in Google Earth, do File, Open… and select Gps or All files as the File Type.

Track Notes

An early meet at 6.20am, thankfully opposite my old folks home. But we were walking by 710am. A mite chilly and breezy.

In via Frank and Jacks Hut for a cache for others, then via old fire trails and easy off-track to the start of the Gudgenby saddle footpad.

The route is well walked in. We covered the 2.4km in 50mins. A short water break at the saddle. It started to sago snow on us.

Straight up the hill, stopping at 1530m for morning tea. Continuing up, we hit the granite and Roger did a great job leading us up the vegetation lines (the granite was wet and slippery). Around 70m SE of the summit, we ran into snow drifts and ice. We followed the footsteps in the snow of Mac K’s Saturday party, which led us to the entrance of a little cave crawl. Below the summit tors, we inspected the cave and scramble, but in the end used the open granite chimney and the tree branch.

Pretty breezy on top. No commentary with the video clip as you wouldn’t hear anything and I was trying not to get blown off. Huge views. Cache logged by those who needed to.

Our exit off the top was SW, then N, led by mtbikeroz. I had a look at the top of the hole and could see down to where I’d explored in at the bottom. A good, mild exit. We then tracked north to the rock stack, were we had a walk through the zig-zag slot and secret business was done.

Then on for 3 of us to find and log GC1KJHZ Base Camp – Gudgenby, without the cache owner’s help (although we had him with us 🙂 ).

Lunch was taken, with a view down to the east.

We exited the same way as Saturday’s party, following the broad spur down to the east to near Bogong Creek. A lot safer than descending the iced granite slabs. Relatively easy walking, lots of Snow Gum regrowth at the top. 2hrs 35mins for the 3.8km descent.

A fire trail bash of 3.7km in 45mins back to the cars.

A great party (geocachers outnumbering muggles!) and very well led. Satisfying to log the cache which I missed last time.

Track Map

Track

Profile

Party

7 walkers – Roger E (Marmaduke Rothschild) (leader), Meredith H, David L (mtbikeroz), Trevor L, Neil W (IAmCoust), Ian W, me (JohnnyBoyACT).