Bushwalk Australia

Anyone know whether it is possible to walk along the skyline from Olympus to Orthys without exposed scrambling?

MJD has done it... yes it's possible, without exposure? I doubt it very much.

Thanks
I suspected that was the case

I'm getting this strange feeling of deja vu . . .

I reckon you could. When I was on Othrys it looked reasonable enough but, having said that, we didn't do it. Here's a photo looking from Othrys to Olympus.

I wish I'd seen that photo before my recent solo trip to Olympus. I had planned to traverse the both plateaus, but after the northern half took me longer than expected and being unsure of any descent off the southern end, I chickened out of the Southern half altogether and went home via Oenone. If I'd seen this photo, I would have kept going.

You should have kept going, too. The southern half of Olympus has some very interesting features.

I'm sure it's not as easy as it looks, but it would still be doable. Thanks for the photo.

Graham51 wrote:You should have kept going, too. The southern half of Olympus has some very interesting features.

Yep, I'll definitely do it again one day. I'll be much better prepared knowing what I'm in for this time (at least for the northern part, and a bit better idea of the southern descent from that photo).

We ascended Othrys from the Cuvier Valley which was pretty scrubby - used a lot of fallen trees as mini highways. The descent to the Lakeside track looked thick and cliffy.

Graham51 wrote:We ascended Othrys from the Cuvier Valley which was pretty scrubby - used a lot of fallen trees as mini highways. The descent to the Lakeside track looked thick and cliffy.

You must've copped a bad line, ILUV and I got a pretty clear run. I think we probably traversed diagonally a little from the valley toward the peak, we aimed at an obvious break in the (what could have been, but really weren't) cliffs.

We went up that west ridge (left in g51 photo). And can't recall anything too difficult. But gee it was quite a few years ago.


Peter

I have dropped off the Southern end of Olympus shown in that photo. The boulders up the top are quite large which makes it a little more difficult than it looks but it is certainly doable. Easy once you get over the first bit.

MJD wrote:I have dropped off the Southern end of Olympus shown in that photo. The boulders up the top are quite large which makes it a little more difficult than it looks but it is certainly doable. Easy once you get over the first bit.

Was there any scrub of note between Olympus and Othrys?

Scrub? I'm sure that you'll survive.

Those boulders are lot bigger than the photo makes them look. And the hillside is a lot steeper. In the end, I piked it and went down to Oenone for the night. Beautiful area, until the storm hit . . .

Just the topic I wanted to find, as am considering a trip to Olympus this coming weekend if the weather is looking decent, and was thinking of spending Saturday night on the northern plateau and then traversing south back to the visitor's centre via Othrys on Sunday. Any idea on a vague estimate of time required? I would have thought it would be a long (8+) hour day?