Cathedral Range Traverse

[kevjoh]

Wondering is it possible with doing a car shuffle to be able to walk from Sugarloaf Saddle along the ridge line to Neds Gully and return via Little River Track to Jawbone Carpark in a day. According to the guide books the traverse is only 12k long and rated as mod, with a few km along Little River Track it does look doable. Information and thoughts please.

[jjay]

The ridge line traverse is very very slow going as there is a fair amount of scrambling. From memory it took five hours from sugarloaf to the farmyard which is in between the two jawbones. That was in good dry weather. I imagine it would take longer in bad weather.

[trickos]

That's funny, I posted here about that very same topic about 10 hours earlier. No need for a car shuffle as they have built a brand spanking new track to join the whole loop making it about a 16km day hike. viewtopic.php?f=37&t=8381

[Drew]

The weekend before last a mate and I did an overnight walk at Cathedral. I planned the route based on the walking times given on the park notes but found that we went a lot quicker. We started at Ned's Gully and had planned to go up to Cathedral Peak and along the ridge to The Farmyard on day 1. On day 2 we planned to climb to North and South Jawbone peaks and then go down to Cooks Mill, returning to the car via Little River Track.

We certainly weren't going all that fast, but after starting the walk at 1pm we easily got to The Farmyard before dark. We then decided on day 2 to go along the Razorback for a bit to stretch out the walk. We ended up going all the way to Sugarloaf Peak, descending via Canyon Track, then walking to Jawbone Carpark, Cooks Mill via St Bernards Track, and back to the car via Little River Track. I think we started walking around 9:30 am and were back at the car by 1:30pm. So I'd suggest that it's easily possible to do your proposed walk kevjoh.

In poor weather however the razorback would be slower, with lots of slippery rocks. I would avoid the climb/descent of Sugarloaf Peak completely in wet weather. We found it quite tricky in good weather with overnight packs.

It's a lovely walk, with lots of active lyrebirds at this time of year (mating season).

[Earwig]

You could do the whole circuit in a day with a light pack but it would be a very long, very tiring day and the final walk down the road would seem like hell. The circuit is best over two days as Drew did, but I'd start at Cooks Mill and head to the Farmyard via Neds Gully for day one and return via Sugarloaf on day 2.

Drew, why didn't you take the new track between Sugarloaf Saddle and Cooks Mill ?

[Earwig]

My blog entry on the new track

http://ian-folly.blogspot.com.au/2011/12/messmate-track.html

[north-north-west]

Que?

I did it as a circuit from Jawbone carpark, going down through the campground and back up via Ned's Peak. Including sidetrips to all the summits. It wasn't that long a day,m although I did get a very early start.
It's a fun walk.

[Mifferz]

Was about to ask a similar question lol
This certainly helped - planning to start at Neds Gully, Farm yard, Cooks Mill and back to Neds Gully. Hopefully