Day 1 – Dead Horse Gap to The Sentinel

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Gonna get my hands dirty;

Nothin good ever came from clean.

Tori Forsyth – Black bird

Here I am again. Walking on the AAWT for the third December in a row. This time I’ve got four others with me from the Canberra Bushwalking Club who were foolish enough to come along.

After a quick coffee stop in Jindabyne, we started up from Dead Horse Gap, finally assuaging my shame from two years ago when I took the chairlift, thus leaving the track in an unfinished state. We can talk about the ten km of asphalt outside Hotham another time.

Stephen Marchant was kind enough to drive one of the cars, and joined us for a spell. I had planned for us to summit at least one of the Rams heads, but it was enough just to weave between the brooding superstructures of their rocky masses.

We pretty quickly hit drifts of snow. I’ve spent the last fortnight worrying over the forecast, and last Monday saw eighteen centimetres of fresh snow fall up here on the first day of summer. It’s been a heavy year for snow. But luckily that fresh stuff all melted quickly and the day is sunny and, if not warm, then at least pleasant.

Steven left us (and presumably made it back to his car okay) and we continued along the Rams Heads. There’s something vaguely New Zealandish about this section, which I haven’t walked before. Eventually we dropped down onto the metal boardwalk that runs from the top of the chairlift to Mount Kosciusko, and shared it with the many people out for a day walk. There’s a very decent amount of snow up here for this time of year.

Once we passed the turn off for kozzie, big snow drifts started to block the way. Most were fairly easy to manage, but a couple were dangerously steep, and we all ended up in uncontrolled slides at one point or another. I’m glad we got that experience, because tomorrow we’ll probably have a couple to negotiate and I want us all to recognise the risk involved (and be willing to make the effort to go around where possible). That said, there were no injuries.

Once we got above lake Albinia the going got easier and the drifts became less frequent. It really is stunning country up here, and we couldn’t have asked for better weather.

Our campsite for the night is in a little valley east of The Sentinel, sheltered from the prevailing winds. Last time I was here I strung my hammock across the creek, but with it now swollen with snow melt, I decided to find a safer spot.

After dinner, Daniel and I did the short sharp walk out to The Sentinel to catch the dying light. The rest of the lightweights turned in.

And then turned in for the night. Just about 200km and eleven days left of this. Lovely.