Previous SOTA Activations: 34
Height: 2229m
Points: 10
Walk time to activation zone: 20 minute, $60 chair lift then 1.5 hours walk to the top
Snakes: 0 (woot!)
KM’s driven: Zero (walked to the chairlift from my Thredbo accommodation)
Tesla battery used: 0%
Tesla charges: None
SOTA:Mt Kosciuszko
POTA: Kosciuszko National Park
WWFF: Kosciuszko National Park
This wasn’t planned. How could I not have thought of it? The highest peak in Australia!
I was over a week into my two week adventure driving from Hobart to Brisbane and back to see friends and family and do a few SOTA summits along the way. I had stopped in Canberra for the night but wasn’t really looking forward to a boring motorway drive for the next few days back to the boat in Geelong. There had to be a different route directly south of Canberra that would take me to the coast? I studied the map in my motel room that night and Google suggested I take what appeared to be a gravel road directly south that would pop out at Lakes Entrance on the Victorian south coast. Perfect (foreboding……this “road” wasn’t a great option for a car). Now, over to sotl.as to see if there are any SOTA summits along the way. OMG! A short detour would take me to Thredbo. If I stay there a couple of nights I can do Mt Kosciuszko, the highest peak and therefore the highest SOTA summit in Australia! There are actually a couple of higher peaks on Australian Antarctic Territory but this would be epic, I had to do it.
I’d never stayed in a ski village before so I really enjoyed walking around Thredbo the day I arrived. There is a Parks Office in the middle of the road leading into Thredbo where you have to buy a parks pass. The guy in that hut must have been having a bad day or he hated Tesla’s or something (trust me, it’s a thing!) because he was probably the rudest person I met on the whole two week trip. What a lovely welcome! It was summer time with nice warm weather during the day, no snow at all. The place buzzes in summer with mountain bike riders who take their bikes on the ski lift then ride the trails back to the bottom. I walked to the chair lift and checked out how that works. There are machines but I bought a day pass online for about $60. I had a good feed and a couple of beers at the local pub, dragged all my cold weather gear that I had thankfully packed just in case out of the car, got everything ready and grabbed an early night.
The weather was stunning when I woke. I had a truly horrible breakfast in the motel restaurant. Everything was burnt but also had black burnt crap mixed in with it that must have come off the grill. Barley ate anything. Not a good start to the day. Short walk to the chairlift arriving about 9am. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a bit nervous. This is the old open bench seat arrangement that scoots around behind you and scoops you up with the gate you pull down from overhead. It all went smoothly with a chair to myself. I sat my pack on my lap and didn’t drop anything on the 20min trip up the steepest part of mountain to the start of what turned out to be an hour and 40 minute walk to the summit. The track notes say it should take a fair bit longer than that but maybe they are generous as it would take longer I expect in bad weather and snow.
There is a restaurant/cafe at the top of the chairlift but it was closed today. There was a fair bit of wind so I put a few extra layers on in the shelter there and started the walk at 9:20am. The walk is uphill all the way but most of it is a gentle incline and it’s all on metal grate walkways until you reach the final push to the summit so it’s very easy walking. You pass what is claimed to be the highest public toilet in Australia at Rawsons Pass half way up the trail!
The final push to the summit is a well made gravel track. When I was there they were doing a lot of track maintenance so I would be surprised if even this last steep bit wasn’t walkway in the future. I arrived on the summit at 11am. You pop out on the top to amazing views. It’s incredible to look all around, 360 degree views, and not a single peak higher than you. There were only a few people on the summit which surprised me given how accessible it is. Numbers picked up a bit later as I was doing my activation. It’s a shame that there was so much work going on up there. I guess I’m used to Tasmanian peaks where there’s usually nothing on the summit other than a cairn.
I used one of the workers star pickets to support my squid pole and sat next to their bunting as it gave me a bit of shelter from the wind. I oriented the dipole along their temporary fence line so it didn’t get in anyone’s way. I had more questions from interested onlookers than I usually get but I think that was because where I setup was on the lee side of the summit in a grassy area where people were stopping for lunch. I really wasn’t expecting grass and star pickets and fences on Australia’s highest summit!
Band conditions weren’t great. I only managed a single contact on 20m but got through 10 on 40m allowing me to qualify the park for WWFF & POTA as well as the summit for SOTA. I was super excited to get VK7 locals Stuart, VK7FADZ, Angela, VK7AMP and Tony VK7LTD in the log as well as summit to summit’s with Ian, VK5CZ on Black Rock in South Australia and Rod VK1ACE on Mt Stanley in Victoria, that really made me happy.
The walk back seemed to take forever but was only about 1.5 hours. I was back in the motel room for a shower around 2pm. An amazing day and a huge accomplishment for me ticked off the list.
VK7ID 