UNSW Bushwalking & Mountaineering Club

Newsletter - April 2001

News

I'll keep it brief: -

• The Boree Log proved a great success this year - in fact the biggest event the Club has ever had! More than 60 people came down to Bungonia, near Goulbourn, to enjoy a weekend of walking, climbing, caving, swimming at the waterhole, good company, great food, and a fair bit of alcohol at times. We'll definitely be doing it all again next year, and we might try a similar event in session 2.
• For a while now the position of treasurer has been handled Andrew Collins, who is the Club's vice president. Kabir Bostrom has volunteered to take over this responsibility. Thanks Kabir!
• There are now several regular events held most weeks. Check out the club web page for the Climbing Timetable, which lists regular outings. Wednesdays are quite busy - Marc can be found bouldering on Goldstein College, in the Quad, around lunchtime, and after that quite a few of us head out to nearby Queen's Park for practice with ropes safety and self-rescue. We're starting to look at belay escapes and leader rescue, but you're welcome to come along and learn basic techniques of abseiling and prussiking as well. Look at the trips list at the end of the newsletter, or on the web page, for up to date information.
• We've finally got a good web server! The Club webpages now live at www.bmc.unsw.edu.au and hopefully will continue living there indefinitely! Make sure you check it out for all the latest news and trips information.
• For those of you who are receiving this by snail mail, I'd like to apologise for the long delay since the Club Meeting. The Easter holidays meant we had little time to be posting it out. If you'd prefer to receive newsletters by email, subscribe yourself to our mailing list, bmc-events@explode.unsw.edu.au, by following the instructions on the webpage, and email our secretary, Tom Sobey, at bmc-secretary@bigfoot.com, to remove yourself from the snail mail mailing list.
• And finally, apologies to everyone for the annoying messages which plagued the mailing list over the first few weeks of session. We were having some teething problems, with some people sending requests to be unsubscribed to the entire list! That problem has been solved now, and you can safely subscribe to the list, expecting to only receive interesting and cool information about great things to do outdoors!

A successful attempt on the Three Peaks.

Party: Brian Hawkins, Nick Simpson, Rhys Hart, Frederik Bockelmann

After weeks of training and expectation, the day arrived. We skipped our afternoon lectures and caught the train to Katoomba. A slight worry was that Nick, who had the maps, was not on the train. But he turned up at Katoomba station. 'Been waiting long?' 'I was on the same train as you,' said Nick, 'but I was sitting downstairs.'

We dined and started walking. You can choose to begin the Three Peaks anywhere between Katoomba railway station and Narrowneck gate. We chose Katoomba police station, which we passed at 6:02 p.m. To "really" do the Three Peaks you must take less than 48 hours; so we would have to be back at the police station by 6:02 p.m. on Sunday.

The moon was nearly full and the moonlight helped us walk quickly along Narrowneck. As we were scrambling down the cliffs near Tarro's ladder, we saw a big treefrog (Litoria citropa) on a rock. Later that night we saw sugar gliders and ringtailed possums in the trees - but we were too sleepy to take much interest. It was 2 a.m. before we reached the Cox's River at Yellow Pup. It didn't look like rain, so we just slept on the grass without bothering to put up the flies. We would have to be up in a little over three hours anyway.

We snored through Rhys's alarm and didn't wake until six. Rhys, Nick and myself packed in a hurry and said goodbye to Frederik, who had been having trouble with blisters and was going to wait for us by the river. 'If we don't come back,' we told him, 'just stay where you are. The police helicopter will arrive on Tuesday or Wednesday.'

We splashed across the Cox's, got water from Kanangra Creek and set off up Strongleg. This first climb was quite enjoyable. We reached Cloudmaker at 9:30 and left it soon afterwards.

After a tedious sidling under some cliffs near Mount Marooba Karoo we descended a steep, thigh-busting ridge. My quads, tender from going down Yellow Pup the night before, started to hurt. We arrived at Kanangra Creek at about 11:30. There was a pretty little blacksnake there to welcome us, and the scene was so beautiful in the sunlight that I just wanted to stay for the rest of the day. But I had to be content with dunking my head in the water and eating a muesli bar. Then we walked upstream and tackled Mount Paralyser.

The climb was long and hard and steep. It was 1:50 before we got to the top. We were about an hour behind schedule and it was doubtful if we would make the summit of Mount Guouogang before dark. Rhys was exhausted; but there was nothing we could do except head for Whalania Creek as planned.

As we descended we kept casting glances across the valley in front of us at Nooroo Buttress - the mighty, knife-edged, violently twisting ridge that we would have to climb if we were to reach Guouogang. It was an intimidating and depressing sight.

We rested for ten minutes by Whalania Creek before attempting Nooroo. Rhys fought his exhaustion and beat it and we gained height steadily. The views from the dragon-back ridge were amazing but my deadened senses could not appreciate them. Near the top I had to stop frequently and swig orange-drink. The sun was setting.

We hauled ourselves over boulders and stumbled through scrub. We found a flattish place without too many stones and threw down our packs. It was not quite dark. 'Where's the top of the mountain?' asked Rhys. 'This is it.' We made tea - nectar! - and lay still, doing nothing. We chatted for the first time all day.

The next morning we woke at 5:30 feeling surprisingly good. We climbed the cairn on the summit of Guouogang and read the logbook; the Three Peaks had last been attempted in October 2000. We made our own entry and set off for the Cox's River, to collect Frederik.

We - I - made a bit of a blunder coming down from Mount Bullagowar. Instead of taking the ridge that would have led us directly to Frederik, we took another, faster ridge that dumped us at the river a couple of kilometres upstream. Well it didn't actually dump us at the river - it dumped us in Guouogang Brook, a hundred metres or so from the river. In Guouogang Brook we got stung by stinging nettles; then I walked into a giant stinging tree. It stung me on my right leg, my right cheek, my scalp and my left ear. Good one! I was glad when we reached the river and walked waist-deep through the sweet, soothing water.

We had told Frederik we would pick him up at 8:30. As it turned out, we didn't arrive till ten. This was after an encounter with a brown snake, the only one I have ever seen by the Cox's River. We found Frederik safe and sound and spent a pleasant ten minutes yarning. Then, at 10:23, we charged up Yellow Pup Ridge.

Walking fairly quickly, and without stopping, it takes about seven hours to get from the river at Yellow Pup to Katoomba. We had seven hours and thirtynine minutes at our disposal, which was cutting it pretty fine, especially considering the huge walk we had done the day before. It was touch and go whether we would make it.

Two thirds of the way up Yellow Pup we saw a blacksnake and stopped to photograph it, as it was the first Australian snake Frederik had seen. Then it was go go go again. At 11:36 we left Mount Yellow Dog and set out for Mobbs Swamp, where we filled our water bottles. At 12:45 we left Mobbs Swamp. Our leeway was being eaten into.

We climbed up onto Narrowneck and had a short break at the lookout. We set off again at 2:55. The walk from the lookout to Katoomba normally takes three hours, if you go pretty quickly. We now had only seven minutes up our sleeves.

We burned along Narrowneck, dodging cyclists. My legs were about ready to pack it in. There was a sharp pain in my right knee but so long as I kept walking it was manageable. Half an hour from the gate we passed a party of scouts with compasses dangling from their necks. They were unhappy at being overtaken and made a fierce attempt to catch up to us. When I reached the gate I stopped and looked back. Frederik was hobbling up the hill on his badly blistered feet with about twenty red-faced, furiously marching scouts behind him. They passed him ten metres from the gate and strode up and stood around hyperventilating. I suppose it was a good effort by the scouts but it was an even better effort by Frederik, without whose selflessness and guts the rest of us would not have completed the walk in 48 hours.

We reached the police station at 5:49, thirteen minutes before our deadline. I felt moved as I limped up the hill and saw the police station's two Australian flags and my friends, who had endured this walk with me, standing underneath them in the dwindling light. Nick, a noted felon, said 'It's the first time I've ever been happy to see a cop shop.' 'It's the first time you've ever seen one from the outside,' we said.

In fourtyeight hours we had walked ninety kilometres, much of it trackless, climbed 5,000 metres and descended an equal amount. But the figures alone do not give a true idea of the walk's difficulty. It is the fallen trees you must climb over or under, the jagged rocks you must balance on, the boulders you must haul yourself up, the masses of prickly undergrowth you must push through, and the myriad sticks and stones waiting to trip you when you are stumbling with exhaustion, that make the Three Peaks so hard.

When I got home my stepfather said, 'Did you do your walk?' 'Yes.' 'Did you break the record?' 'No. We weren't trying to.' 'How long did it take you?' 'We did it in under 48 hours.' 'And what's the record?' 'Fourteen hours.' 'Humph.'

Trips List

Full trips list for 2001 is also available on the webpage.