Bushwalk Australia

Hi there. Long time stalker, first post! Apologies if this is not the right forum for this.
A few days ago I completed a walk up Little Mount Bogong to Bogong West Peak. I had managed to get to the summit back in April but thick fog caused me to retreat back so I was keen to try again. I started at Mountain Creek and followed Moncrieff’s Tk and then Little Bogong Tk to Four Mile Gap. From here I left the track and followed the southern spur of Little Bogong all the way to its summit. Despite looking extensively I have found virtually no information about Little Bogong and hiking attempts anywhere and now I know why! As per last attempt the huge fallen Mountain Ash was the early challenge and it was often easier to walk along their length, but then the head-high shrubbery up above the tree-line was the real obstacle to negotiate. I think it is a Grevillea species that is so dense in parts its difficult to walk between plants. There were a multitude of animal tracks but most not very helpful. Upon stumbling onto the open summit the views were amazing for 360deg making the effort worthwhile (and a Trig station!). Distance was about 13km from the start.

The ridge up to West Peak looked ominous from here and it was straight into scrub bashing again. After about an hour of horrendous and incredibly slow pushing (and crawling) through the scrub wall, fatigue was starting to kick in, the water bottle started to run low and I reached back and felt for the PLB in the pack pocket for a little reassurance. It was then, about half way along the ridge that I stumbled onto a ‘track’. A proper, formed, human-crafted track, essentially running south of the ridge. Whilst horribly overgrown it gave me the navigational confidence I needed and I could also pick up my speed to finish at West Peak. I cannot find any marked tracks for this ridge on contemporary maps and can only presume this would have been an interesting side trip for enthusiastic walkers 20-50 years ago when the track would have been maintained and pre bushfires. The ridge close to the end was quite rocky and steep in parts but nothing technical. Whilst I didn’t encounter other walkers until Mt Bogong Summit, Staircase Spur was quite busy on the descent back to Mountain Ck on a hot day. Whilst I wouldn’t put this trip in the enjoyable category it was definitely a rewarding day and Little Bogong is a fabulous mountain in its own right.

What a great first post. Welcome to the forum Ironfox.

That's quite a effort! Well done.

Thanks for posting this Ironfox,

I've been thinking about heading up and doing this walk in the reverse direction (and probably over two days, camping on Hooker Plateau somewhere). It was good to see a couple of photos of the conditions.

Cheers

Thanks Neilmny and Baeng72. bigkev - You've certainly provided plenty of inspiration over the years with some of your off-track exploits and trip reports. I'm not surprised this is on your bucket list. Good luck.

Do you want the good news first or the bad news?

The good news is that that track goes all the way to the fire trail (well, it did 10 odd years ago when I did this walk), so bigkev should have an easier time of it. The bad news is that the track goes all the way from the fire trail, so almost all the really hard work was unnecessary.

Impressive.... and possibly too much type 3 fun for me to consider undertaking that route.

Thanks NNW- I definitely could have done with finding the track a little earlier from the summit of LB to west peak but I couldn't find any evidence of a track below the summit of LB to the LB fire trail.

north-north-west wrote:Do you want the good news first or the bad news?

The good news is that that track goes all the way to the fire trail (well, it did 10 odd years ago when I did this walk), so bigkev should have an easier time of it. The bad news is that the track goes all the way from the fire trail, so almost all the really hard work was unnecessary.

North-north-west, could you indicate where this track commences? I assume you mean it begins at or near Little Bogong, and heads in the direction of West Peak. Is that correct?

I mean there is, or was, an old foot track - more a pad really, but well established at the time - running from the Little Bogong Track somewhere around Four Mile Gap, up to Little Bogong and then through the scrub towards Bogong West Peak. Don't recall exactly when I did it, but it must have been 2008 at the latest, and possibly as much as five years earlier.

Come to think of it, it was pre-GPS and even pre-digital camera, so probably early 2004. The scrub wasn't all that bad then.

ETA: Now I finally found a map that covers the area, I think it may have been from near Moncrieff Gap. I started and finished the loop at Mountain Creek campground.

Thanks for the clarification. Starting near Four Mile Gap was what I initially thought you may have meant. Then I got confused.

I've walked through Four Mile Gap a few times in the last two or three years, and didn't see a track heading in the direction of Little Bogong. Of course, that's not to say it no longer exists. I might make another trip sometime and investigate.

Sorry about that. Kind of confused myself. Not sure exactly where I left the vehicle tracks and headed up, except I seem to recall seeing something that looked like the start of a pad and checked it out and it kept going up so I kept following it. Steep, and steeper as it got higher, but not that scrubby (and I wasn't as accustomed to the yukk then as now). There are only two spurs that are viable , so it has to have been from near either Moncrieff or Four Mile.