Alpine adventure

We took another opportunity to celebrate Rob's big birthday this year, with friends, at a ski lodge at Charlotte Pass in the Snowy Mountains. Our group had the ski lodge to ourselves so there was stacks of room and plenty of scope for preparing big feasts in the fully equipped commercial kitchen.......


and then cleaning up afterwards!


One of our goals was to do the summit walk to Mt Kosciuszko; at 2228 metres Australia's highest mountain, and a 9 km walk from the lodge at Charlotte Pass (18km return that is).

Charlotte Pass marks the end of the tree line in this alpine region. The snow gums' fight for survival against the wind and the snow turns them into amazing sculptural forms over time.

This was our first crossing of the Snowy River, only a few kilometres from its source in the mountains.

And on to Seaman's Hut, a welcome landmark for walkers and skiers needing emergency shelter when conditions turn treacherous.

The wildflowers were in beautiful bloom all over the mountain range. It looked like Charlotte must have gone to a lot of trouble planting this huge garden.

After about three hours of gradual climbing we all made it to the highest point in Australia!

At this stage the wind was blowing in fierce, icy gusts. I had to brace myself to keep from over balancing on the rocks. It felt dangerous even taking photos with my big camera.......to say nothing about having a very bad hair day!

Five of us decided to go the extra distance and walk back to Charlotte Pass the long way, around the Western face of the main range and past a number of spectacular glacial lakes.

Early into the walk we passed very close to some remnant snow, where a posse of crows had gathered.

Our walk was much more challenging on this track but the views down to the Victorian Alps and then Lake Albina, the first of the glacial lakes, made the effort worth it.

The wind was so strong at this point we all felt we could go into orbit at any moment.

The common name for the lush, green, fern leafed plant is native celery. Later we found plants like these with well formed flower shoots on long stalks. They smelt just like farmed celery.

Even in this harsh place with wind roaring around us and the clouds rolling in Charlotte's garden looked quite beautiful.

About an hour and a half from home we passed Blue Lake and then started the long descent from the Main Range. The wind dropped, the sun shone through the rolling clouds and we crossed the Snowy River for the second time today.

We'd walked 22kms, a lot of it climbing or navigating steep descents. We were stuffed by the end, exhilarated by completing this challenging walk, but capable of little else but nursing our tight muscles, exhaustion, windburn and (unexpected) sunburn.

We had a fit of the lazies next morning. We were late starting and only attempted a mild 3km walk (return) to the pretty Rainbow Lake, further back towards Perisher and close to the historic old Sponars Chalet on Kosciuszko Road.

We were surprised to see lots of Royal Bluebells growing near the lake, Canberra's floral emblem.

By 4.00pm we were sufficiently recovered to attempt another small walk. We drove the car to the ridge above the Charlotte Pass Ski Resort, affording us great views of our lodge (the pale green painted one next to / on the left of the large multi level building to the right of centre of this picture).

It was only a 2 km walk along the ridge to Mt Stillwell (a bit less than 4km return).

This was a very pretty walk with flowers growing profusely amongst the rock outcrops and magnificent views to the North ranges. We started in warm sunshine, but within a half hour dark, low clouds started rolling in, the temperature dropped at least 5 degrees and we made our way back, still a few metres short of making it to the very top of this mountain.

This time in the mountains, shared with good friends, has been a wonderful way to celebrate the start of a year of big birthdays for Rob and me.