In this final article, Nik Sands from Bushwalk Australia shares the story of the last day of his trip from Lake St Clair to Cradle Mountain with his wife Heidi. They completed the Overland Track, walking south to north, in August 2010. It was a fantastic trip with lots of snow and beautiful scenery!
Over to Nik
We had arranged for a 2:00pm pick up at Ronnie Creek with the ‘Whiskeylovers’ but we knew that the deepest snow was yet to come, and the German bloke at Windermere said he’d taken 9 hours to do this section of the walk 2 days earlier. So we set an alarm for 5:00am to give us time to cook our pancakes and get …
Welcome to Part Five of a trip report courtesy of Nik Sands from Bushwalk Australia. Nik and his wife Heidi completed the Overland Track, walking south to north, in August 2010.
In this article we combine two days, from Frog Flats to Waterfall Valley Hut!
Nik did not have any images for this section but he mentions wombats in a section below. We found a movie on Flickr that may please!
Over to Nik:
Well this was the day that had been forecast for heavy rain, but we managed to get the tent packed away before any rain came. In fact the heavy rain did not come all day, and there was just some light drizzle occasionally, but nothing …
Before leaving home, the weather forecast for day 4 was for fine sunny weather, and for day 5, it was “heavy rain”. Not wanting to do the longest day of the walk in heavy rain, and getting some idea of how much longer it might be while wading through deep snow in heavy rain, we made the decision to make our fine weather fourth day longer than originally planned in order to make the next day of expected bad weather shorter. Even if it meant pitching and packing a tent in the rain.
So we set off somewhat earlier than on the preceding days, aiming to have Lunch at Pelion Hut instead of staying there overnight as originally planned.
Hiking the Overland Track in winter from south to north?
What are conditions like on the Cradle Mountain to Lake St Clair hike when there has been a lot of snow?
Home dried bircher muesli for breakfast (thanks for this idea Frank!)… mmm… good… but don’t overdo the water next time, and don’t forget to add the home dried strawberries carried all this way!
It had snowed heavily again all night and there was now an even deeper layer of fresh snow on everything. But the cloud appeared to be thinning out and it looked like it was going to be a nice day with some indistinct glimpses of the DuCane Range through the cloud to the west. Before leaving the architectural marvel that is Bert Nichols Hut, Heidi decided that she’d better try out the snow shoes in a controlled environment rather than trying to figure it out with cold fingers on rough terrain. So she spent a few minutes parading around the square flat patch of snow in the plain behind the hut which covered the helicopter pad. Satisfied with how to attach, remove and use the snow shoes, we strapped them back onto the pack and set out.
This is the second part of a trip report courtesy of Nik Sands from Bushwalk Australia Nik and his wife Heidi completed the Overland Track, walking south to north, in August 2010. We pick up the trip from Echo Point Hut as they head off to Bert Nicols Hut on Day Two. It was to be one of the “snowiest” Overland trips for several years. During the night a good 5 or 10 cm of fresh snow had fallen, and during the morning it continued to snow quite heavily at times. This was truly beautiful, and for Heidi, it was both exciting and intimidating, being the first time she had done any walking in heavy snow, either in the air or on the ground.
