Bushwalk Australia

Gday,

I've had The Abels volume 2 for some time but only recently opened it as we were visiting Queenstown for a few days.

I love how volume one has a difficulty and time estimate at the beginning of each essay. This is sadly missing in volume 2 and often it's hard to get a feeling for this from the writing.

Has anyone produced a list of time/difficulty for the Abels in the South West? It would be a great asset when trying to initially plan a trip.

Cheers

Once you've climbed a few you kind of get the feel for what's required by comparing to other nearby walks.

The Southwest is a different ball game, most of them are overnight/multiday walks which is probably why there's no time frame given.

There's plenty of info online if you search it, otherwise ask the question on here regarding which peak you are considering climbing and I'm sure one of us here will respond....

Understood. 33 under the belt so far and now expanding to the SW. Found the mountains in the queenstown area to be surprisingly easy. Well aware of the multi days. As I said the first volume is great as I just open it to the page and immediately know if the ascent is family friendly or not. It's wierd that volume 2 is not as user-friendly.

Which addition of Volume 1 are you using? The latest addition is only a couple of years old, so has more up to date time estimates. A second edition of Volume 2 is in the pipeline. I will the feedback on to Bill.

Cheers pazzar. Since then I have found a "high places of Tasmania" excel file which is great. Still hasn't got the info I'm after but it's a great start. I might make this my little side project.

Having the summary info is great when the sky is clear and you gave a small window to summit something or you skim through to put some larger plans together.

Part of the problem with getting consistent ascent times is that the essays are done by a rather disparate group of people. What pazzar (for instance) might climb in one hour would probably take me three.
Unless one single person does all the peaks while at a similar level of fitness, any given timeframe would be a very rough guide only. Better to check distances, terrain and advised hazards or difficulties and give yourself an expected ascent time based on those and your level of experience.

Of course. It's just good to know as a quick reference is this a 1,4,8 or "requires camping" activity.

Most of the SW Abel's outside of areas like Mt Field, Hartz, Wedge, Sprent, Anne, Frenchmans are somewhat quite challenging when compared to say their northern counterparts.
The idea you might just pop out for a family friendly day walk doesn't work so well, or at least it doesn't for my 20 or so I have left to do.

cnschulz wrote:Of course. It's just good to know as a quick reference is this a 1,4,8 or "requires camping" activity.

Or requires a week long bush bash... The scale goes from Drive to the summit, to spend a week scrub bashing off track, the latter I think just doesn't apply to Vol 1?
The difficulty is subjective - and subject to route selection. Experience and planning counts a lot more, you can't just open the book and decided today I'm gonna go bag the Pokana Peak.

It works for Vol 1. but as far as Vol 2. I would think too many differing opinions based on the choice of route. Also in areas that have no established tracks suggesting everyone goes the same way isn't good either.
So a bit of vagueness to protect the remote areas?