Solitary traverse in one day prerequisites

[Lith]

Absolutely love this walk but only ever done it over 2 days, I know people have done it in one no problem and I want to have a crack at it. Problem is I'm not 100% I have the fitness for it yet and the last thing I want to happen is to be stuck halfway down the east side with nothing but a day pack in late autumn/winter.

Does anyone have any suggestions for walks that if completed would be a good indication that solitary in a day is doable? I was thinking perhaps something like the dardanelles pass circuit in 60-90 minutes but this might be too short. Alternatively I could just go for it and decide whether I'll make it or not by the time I summit up the knife edge, if I took this route, what would be a good time to aim for if I left at say 7am?

Planning to do it from Katoomba to Wentworth falls as that tends to be the easier direction in my experience, will try it again in reverse if I succeed.

[wildwanderer]

A few points.

- Jamision Valley is closed from Tuesday 1st May for hazard reduction burn. So the landscape may change significantly after this burn takes place.

- The route from Scenic world, down fubar step, federal pass, traverse solitary, down to kedumba R and then up the pass to the old Queen Vic Hosptial is 22km with roughly 2000m decent and 1900m accent. Its going to be the elevation that will be tough. 22km in a day is challenging but not to bad. So Id be asking myself how many 17-20km long routes with over 1200-1500m accent and then 1200-1500 decents had I completed recently.

- Now the weather is cooler its going to be easier. So thats a plus.

Training walks.
- Something like (assuming your a reasonably experienced navigator) Start Blackheath station walk Braeside track to Echo Point, down Rodiguez Pass, then along the Valley to Juntion rock, up Govetts Leap, and then Popes Glen track back to Blackheath station. 19km with 1200m accent and 1200 decent would be a good first step training route. Or start finish at govetts Leap. Roughly the same elevation but shorter distance.

or for a walk closer to town (katoomba) with exit points try - down fubar steps, along federal pass to the 3 sisters, then dardanelles pass, then back up to Prince henry track and back to fubar steps. 10km with 1100 decent and the same accent. Do it twice and its the same as the solitary traverse in a day.

- Not sure exactly what your referring to when you say Dardanelles pass circuit? Do you mean down the giant stairway. dardanlles pass then prince henry. Thats only 5km with 600m up and 600m down. Really not enough to gauge if your conditioned enough for the solitary traverse. unless you do it 3-4 times in a single day.

*Edited a couple times.

[ribuck]

Lith, as you have done it in two days, you have already done it with an overnight pack. It's much easier with a day pack.

So just start early and do it. Bring a good torch just in case, and bear in mind that after the dry summer there may not be water atop the mountain (although it's raining in katoomba as I type this).

You can save some effort by starting at the Golden Stairs instead of Furber Steps.

[jonnosan]

I agree with ribuck, if you can do it with an overnight pack you can do it as a day trip. but definitely bring a head torch.
personally I prefer to go west to east - I find it much easier on my creaky old joints to go down kedumba pass and up the col than the reverse. Plus it gets the road slog and big elevation change out of the way at the beginning.

[rcaffin]

It's a day walk, but a long one. By the time we got back to Katoomba, a lot of the cafes had shut! But a Lebanese kebab take away was still open and was able to provide us a meal on plates.

Cheers
Roger

[wildwanderer]

It's a day walk, but a long one. By the time we got back to Katoomba, a lot of the cafes had shut! But a Lebanese kebab take away was still open and was able to provide us a meal on plates.

Cheers
Roger

haha I remember stumbling into some pizza shop near the station. and spending an hour or so eating. By which time my leg muscles had seized up and I couldnt move

[rcaffin]

By which time my leg muscles had seized up and I couldn't move

Yeah, happens
More memorable that way though.

Cheers
Roger

[davidf]

Are you one car or two? If one I,d park at the neck so you will have time on your side for navigation. Again with a car I,d make a stash of food and fluid on the kings tableless exit. Long haul to Wentworth falls. Another option is a Fri night walk out with a wheelie bin liner. Have a kip to pre dawn and get back in daylight. I don't drive/

[Lith]

Trip Report

(Can also be considered a report for how solitary is right now)

So after waiting for weeks for everything to reopen, NPWS finally reopened my favourite walk with the warning of "Widowmakers be about and track may be hard to find". Slightly wary I headed off with my brother from the golden stairs at 7:30am with my new "darn tough" brand socks (these are amazing, seriously get them)

Made it fairly quickly along the path to ruined castle and by 8:30 we were starting the scrambles. Just before here is about where the evidence of the fire started (water tanks at ruined castle campsite are untouched phew) and honestly it's not too terrible in most spots. Most trees have been relatively untouched and it's only the undergrowth that's been burnt away. The climb up the knife edge was enjoyable as always and I looked for some alternative routes this time which resulted in some fun little bouldering and scrambles. On the last alternative scramble though I came back to the track on the side and while hopping down from the rock I grabbed a nearby branch to steady myself but as it turns out, the NPWS warning about widowmakers was no joke and the branch snapped right off and almost smacked my brother in the head, we're very lucky neither of us got hurt or slipped down the hill. Learnt my lesson and was very wary of any other burnt trees along the rest of the track. They've gone through the whole walk with a chainsaw and cut down anything near the track that could fall on walkers but as always, it's a good idea to be extra careful for a few months. The remains of the chainsawing will ruin your immersion but it's resulted in some hilarious sights (spot anything wrong in this photo?)



We reached the top in good time and to our amazement, we met up with two trail runners who we had seen at the kedumba gate only a few hours earlier. How people do the whole traverse in only a few hours is beyond me, kudos to anyone who can do the ascent up solitary without any breaks. The walk on the top was easy and I think the RFS/NPWS have done a fantastic job with maintaining the track after the burn. Whether you agree with the burn or not, I think we can all agree that we'd rather it not affect the trails and if anything, they're even better now. The solitary track was never hard to find but I could definitely see some people losing their way, now though a 6 year old could navigate the whole thing with no problem. Here's a photo I took as an example, not hard to see where to go!



I don't know how they did this as I'm not familiar with fire fighting but I thank them for maintaining the track to at least a similar condition. I would now grade the solitary walk as "Easy" in terms of pathfinding, it would make as an excellent introduction to overnight hikes for new walkers.

Had a quick (long) lunch at the campsite past chinamans gully at around 11am and then continued to the col. On the way there during the section where you're required to duck under the branches I saw a mean looking stick end pointing right at my face and did a quick and successful duck to dodge it. My brother wasn't so lucky. I heard a loud yell and turned around and my brother was bent over with blood dripping from his head, never a good sign. I finished my first aid course just last week so I sprung into action, dropped my pack and got out my handy first aid kit.

No bandages.

No band-aids.

Just panadol.

Some first aider I am.

Luckily my brothers a reservist and had everything including bandages, benadyne and big smile on his face.

Fixed up we continued and made it to the log book with no issues (The lucky cooking pot is gone!) and started heading down the hill. This was my first time descending that side (ascended it many times) and I have to say, it's a lot easier going down than up, who knew? The soot here is a bit worrying as it turned out to be the most slippery substance known to mankind and on those steep slopes it can be extremely dangerous. A top layer of fine black powder covering a slick mud made it a deathtrap to stand on. Luckily the track was mostly clear of it though so this was never really a problem but if you slip on the track at any point and put your foot on the edge to stabilize, before you'd be fine, now you'll be hitting your PLB after a 15m drop.

I was a bit disappointed with the scenery. It's nice having a chance of pace but the lush green of eastern solitary always appealed to me and now it's been replaced by a blacky brown tinged with the fiery red of the dead leaves. Here's a photo of the base which shows the difference to what it was vs how it is now.



We made it to the bottom and used the handy dandy log to cross the river to avoid our feet getting wet and quickly began the slog back up to the top of kedumba pass. Pretty uneventful, just your standard "I'm way too unfit for this" complaints mixed between frequent breaks. It was around here that my brother's leg muscles started seizing up a bit, I used to get this but not anymore. Does anyone know what causes it? I've heard it's easily solved by some Gatorade powder but i've never had the opportunity to test that out. On the way up I tried to spot the goat track but unfortunately I was unsuccessful. I tried looking where my GPS said it was and I saw something that could be it but I didn't really want to investigate as it was a fair drop to the next floor down and with sheer cliffs on every side, I didn't want to risk anything.

Overall the walk was quite enjoyable and it's been a goal of mine for a while so I'm glad I did it. Took 8 hours which was bang on the estimate. We planned for failure bringing headtorches, space blankets, fire starters, extra cold gear, etc and didn't end up needing any of them. Headtorches are definitely a good idea though. Couldn't imagine getting stuck out there in the dark without some light source. The walk itself hasn't changed much but the scenery definitely has. The burn hasn't changed the area as much as I thought it would but it's definitely different. It is interesting seeing an autumn-y Jamison from all the dead leaves and I'd definitely recommend a visit out there again for anyone looking to inspect the damage.

Didn't spot miners pass or the goat track which is very disappointing as I love reading about these hidden tracks on Dave nobles blog. Definitely need to work on my pathfinding skills!

Next goal is K2K in a day, I think this one might just be a little bit more difficult! Hopefully in a few years time.

Last edited by Lith on Mon 11 Jun, 2018 5:09 pm, edited 5 times in total.

[GPSGuided]

Thanks for the report on the track and location! Interesting read.

[ribuck]

Thanks for the report, Lith. Glad it worked out.

Your photo of the restored track is impressive. It would be interesting to know how they did that.

[tom_brennan]

Your photo of the restored track is impressive. It would be interesting to know how they did that.

In previous burns I've seen, it's happened naturally. The fire just stops at either side of the track, presumably because there's less fuel?

[north-north-west]

I suspect it's partly less fuel and partly compression of what fuel there is on the track.