Bushwalk Australia

I have just got back from a trip to Frenchman's cap and was hoping that someone would have the new total distance from the car park to the summit. Due to the new redirections Chapman's book is a little out of date

Its marginally different.

All that happened is they re-routed the track along the side of hill a bit earlier on so that it would less prone to the same erosion and mud issues as the original phillips lead.
it wasn't done to be shorter, and the walking time ends up being more or less exactly the same.
See screenshot - old track is roughly the orange line.'
So tracing it with a measurement tool its 100-200m difference....

Azza

I think your map is a little short on the diversion.
This is based on aerial view of the old track superimposed on the new track map.
PS - Using route creating tools in Strava [which shows both the old and new routes!!] gives a shortening of 400m on the new route versus the old.

yeah.. your right. I zoomed in too far.

I've walked the new track in and out a few times now and its doesn't seem noticeably faster.

Azza wrote:...it doesn't seem noticeably faster.

I'd have thought the lack of knee to waist deep mud would make it considerably faster, albeit not that much shorter.

north-north-west wrote:

Azza wrote:...it doesn't seem noticeably faster.

I'd have thought the lack of knee to waist deep mud would make it considerably faster, albeit not that much shorter.

Well its been a little while since I was last there but they'd left a couple of km's of the old Loddons relatively 'untouched' before the turn off.
So you still had a bit of mud to deal with..
I never remember the mud being that bad after you turned the corner and start heading up towards Philips Lead..
Long time ago.

I remember a lot of watery deep mud about mid track, but along Philps Lead it was more of a deep channel full of water, not mud.
The deepest sections were where small creeks were crossing the track. They became quite wide to cross and went a long way down and upstream at those points.
That would equate to the section of the map above before it crosses Philps Creek with creeks crossing from the west.
The earlier section [above this map], which is probably still in use, was not nearly as bad.
Unfortunately I had packed the camera away in case I went in deep, so have no shots of the worst bits.

Six replies and no one has answered your question yet, so I thought I might pitch in. I walked the new track one year ago with my GPS recording it. It says 15.1km from the car park to Lake Vera, and 7.7km from Lake Vera to the summit, all up 22.8km from car park to summit. The distances given by Chapman in 2008 (along the old track) are 16.1km and 7.1km respectively. So it looks like the new track might have taken 1km off the track in (as well as an hour's walking). The new longer distance to the summit might be due to a couple of switchbacks that have been added, or might be GPS inaccuracy. Hope that helps!

I'd have guessed about 1km shorter.

And for me it made a HUGE difference in walking time. Perhaps I was slower in the mud than others.