Budawangs - The Castle - Making a Loop

[bushtucker]

Hi all,

Does anyone have any ideas for doing the Castle walk and visiting Monoloth Valley but making the return as a loop to Long Gully (or nearby - small car shuffle) to avoid having to repeat the same track? Ie, so we dot have to do this type of route again: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Zvs06 ... sp=sharing

Best regards,

Daniel

[puredingo]

Long gully- the castle-monolith valley then up to highlands, return via Sneddon pass dropping down into yadboro river. Follow the river back to your car. Too easy!

[ribuck]

Long gully- the castle-monolith valley then up to highlands, return via Sneddon pass dropping down into yadboro river. Follow the river back to your car. Too easy!

Lol, I assume bushtucker is looking for something a bit shorter than that!

On Day One, you can start at Long Gully, climb The Castle, pass through Monolith Valley, and sleep in one of the camping caves on the western side of Mt Cole.

On Day Two, I can think of two options. You can ascend Mt Owen, cross to its southern end, and descend to the Yadboro River. It's over 20 years since I've done this, so my memory is hazy, but it goes something like this: Find the (very steep) slot a little to the west of the south tip of Mt Owen, and make your way down to the intermediate plateau. (The steep slot is airy. I scampered down it in my 20s, made my way down extremely cautiously in my 30s, and wouldn't touch it now without a rope. But those who can climb The Castle without using the handlines will find it easy.) At the south tip of the plateau there is an "obvious" way down. After descending the first part, make your way eastwards until you see a huge "Finger of God" rock formation high above you, which points to your descent ridge. This is just from vague memory, so don't rely on it. Also bear in mind that the top of Mt Owen is much more overgrown nowadays and progress will be slow.

The second option is to take the track down from Mt Cole towards Bibbenluke, then turn left. It's 15 years since I've done this, and again my memory is hazy, plus I was not the one navigating so I don't know exactly where the pass is, but I recall that the pass was straightforward once we located it, which took a while.

Sorry to be so vague. Now that you know it is possible to see Monolith Valley as part of a two-day round trip, you can look for specifics.

[Grabeach]

There is a topic "Climbing Mt Owen from Long Gully" (last post 30/7/13, currently Pg. 11) which covers that end of it. SIX Maps also has excellent definition in that area.

[ribuck]

I found a video which shows a party ascending the crux of the Owen Nose route. If you watch from 2:05 to 3:00, you can decide whether you would be happy to make use of that slot:

https://youtu.be/Vh3il3al6xI?t=2m5s

[Grabeach]

Weird. I know it was a long time ago (31/6/87), but I don't remember it being as steep as it looks in the video. Particularly so as we were descending, which usually makes it look worse.

[ribuck]

Same here. But the final shot from the top, showing the small tree that can be used as a first handhold when descending, is exactly how I remember it.

I think it's just getting older that makes awkward scrambles look worse.

[bushtucker]

Wow - thank you everyone for the tips and advice. Really helpful. The video was great, looks really steep!!

[bushtucker]

It's not clear to me where this ascent/descent is at 2 minutes 5 seconds. Is that off Mt Owen towards the Yadboro valley?

[ribuck]

Bushtucker, it's off the upper cliffline of Mt Owen, just west of its south tip. If you descend that, then descend the lower cliff line and descend the ridge pointed to by the "finger of god" rock formation, you end up at the Yadboro River.

[clarence]

That is exactly as I remember it. I have done it twice, once in heavy rain. I still advise taking a rope (35m 8mm or so), though most could do it without one.

My recollection is from the log book on the southern end of Mt Owen head SE across a little scrubby patch, probably 30m or so, and the gully/slot is on the right (western side). You will soon know whether you are in the correct one or not, as it is like the video nearly all the way down. I would think it is the best part of 80m vertical from top to bottom.

There are also a few rocky/cliff/scrambles on the lower tier of cliffs (around the 500m elevation as shown on the map above) heading down to the Yadboro.

Clarence

[bushtucker]

Hi all,

Thanks for the responses! Really informative. I love this place so much and went there on the Saturday for a big 16 hour walk. We made it to The Castle, Monolith Valley and Mt Owen but couldn't find out way off Mt Owen towards the gap between Mt Cole, which would have allowed us to walk around Mt Cole and then see the Seven Gods Pinnacles and then re-enter Monolith Valley. It took us a long time to make the distance and we did a fair bit of travel in the dark (both at the start and end) but were prepared for that with the right gear etc.

Map is here: https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid= ... M5GVSlEKRk

I'd love to know how / where you get off Mt Owen (not the Southern Side, which is now well covered in this forum/thread) but between Mt Cole and Mt Owen. I think I'll start another post on it elsewhere. The top of Mt Owen is quite "mazy"; lots and lots of cairns but difficult to follow and some pretty intense shrub. Still, a beautiful spot and really, really happy we made it up there.

Best regards and thanks to all for your responses,

Daniel

[ribuck]

Here's how I did it a month ago:
http://www.wikiloc.com/wikiloc/spatialA ... d=13257956

I came around Mt Cole and up the valley between Cole and Owen. As soon as I reached the plateau of Owen I retraced my steps, so the end of that trace marks the exact point where the pass can be found.

When approaching this way, there is a short elevated section on the rock slopes of Mt Owen, but this is not the pass to the top. You return to the valley and don't ascend to the plateau until just before the saddle of the valley.

Its definitely easier to find this spot from the bottom than the top, just because the scrub is so thick on top nowadays. The pass is up an easy slot or up a short stretch of sloping rock and is not difficult. It is cairned, but there seem to be cairns everywhere on Mt Owen so that doesn't help much.

[GPSGuided]

Sounds like someone with good knowledge of the local should kick some cairns up there.

[Walk_fat boy_walk]

Sounds like someone with good knowledge of the local should kick some cairns up there.

Yeh there are a lot of seemingly unnecessary (and misleading!) cairns on Owen. To my mind there should only be three main cairned routes on the top, all of which intersect just south of the pass between Owen and Cole that bushtucker was looking for: the one that takes you from the north eastern corner of the mountain (where you ascend the gully up from the MV side) parallel and close to the mountain's northern edge to the abovementioned intersection; one from the intersection parallel (and at times close) to the mountain's western edge down to the southern tip (and onto the "nose" of the mountain where the lookout is); and one from that main intersection to the pass between Owen and Cole (a short route of only a couple of hundred meters). From memory the intersection is marked with a larger cairn (maybe with a branch sticking out of it)? Few years since I was there but it was cairn city in the vicinity of that intersection... pretty confusing!

[Grabeach]

What's this cairned ROUTES thing? Years ago it was only considered acceptable to have ONE cairn (three rocks only) placed at the top and/or bottom of a pass, but only when it was very difficult to find or where there were other false routes that you couldn't see didn't go from the start. And the discussion back then was mainly about whether there should be ANY cairns at all!

[Walk_fat boy_walk]