Du Cane Range Traverse
Posted: Mon 08 Nov, 2010 5:12 pmDu Cane Traverse
The Du Cane traverse was a trip that I'd been very keen on for a few years now, having gazed up at its boulder lined defenses many times on previous trips in the area. I'd just finished uni a few days ago so I was not only excited to get back into the bush, but also because the forecast was of cold but fine weather! So on a cool cloudy morning my friend and I drove up to meet with forum members ILUVSWTAS and Ollster at Lake St Claire.
We planned to camp at Du cane gap for our first night but on stopping by the new Windy Ridge hut along the way, the wood fire and drizzly weather outside made it a comfortable if somewhat soft decision to stay. Miso soup, salmon and thermarest cushions were also enjoyed
The second day was very promising with clear views to Mt Geryon from the hut and blue sky around. We quickly walked along the Overland Track up to Du Cane gap and then leaving the track, made our way up through the scrub to Falling Mt.
It was a great feeling to reach Falling Mt and be greeted with perfect views of the range after climbing through the scrub.
We exceeded our expectations of reaching Falling Mt by midday, and had time to explore the nearby cliffs of Castle crag and have lunch before heading off along the range by 12:30. It was a careful descent from Castle crag as there had been a light snow the night before, making shady rocks a bit slippery.
The first half of the afternoon was quite straightforward boulder hopping following a cairned route along the ridge, but at a certain point halfway along to Mt Massif we either left the cairns or they stopped, and we just continued to make our own way along the northern side of the range toward the much talked about 'menacing cliffs' at which we were to "turn right, not left!". Picking our way along the ridge, we weren't sure if these cliffs were the very large ones we could see bordering Mt Massif, or the 'car sized boulders' becoming more obvious up along the ridge. We ended up staying close to the ridgeline and on reaching the base of these large leaning boulders we found a large cairn on the right (northern) side as was described in other track notes, and on traversing to the right we made our way up through a snow filled gully to the Massif plateau.
Time from Windy Ridge to Falling Mt - 3.5 hrs
Castle crag to Mt Massif - 4.5 hrs
The Du Cane traverse was a trip that I'd been very keen on for a few years now, having gazed up at its boulder lined defenses many times on previous trips in the area. I'd just finished uni a few days ago so I was not only excited to get back into the bush, but also because the forecast was of cold but fine weather! So on a cool cloudy morning my friend and I drove up to meet with forum members ILUVSWTAS and Ollster at Lake St Claire.
We planned to camp at Du cane gap for our first night but on stopping by the new Windy Ridge hut along the way, the wood fire and drizzly weather outside made it a comfortable if somewhat soft decision to stay. Miso soup, salmon and thermarest cushions were also enjoyed
The second day was very promising with clear views to Mt Geryon from the hut and blue sky around. We quickly walked along the Overland Track up to Du Cane gap and then leaving the track, made our way up through the scrub to Falling Mt.
It was a great feeling to reach Falling Mt and be greeted with perfect views of the range after climbing through the scrub.
We exceeded our expectations of reaching Falling Mt by midday, and had time to explore the nearby cliffs of Castle crag and have lunch before heading off along the range by 12:30. It was a careful descent from Castle crag as there had been a light snow the night before, making shady rocks a bit slippery.
The first half of the afternoon was quite straightforward boulder hopping following a cairned route along the ridge, but at a certain point halfway along to Mt Massif we either left the cairns or they stopped, and we just continued to make our own way along the northern side of the range toward the much talked about 'menacing cliffs' at which we were to "turn right, not left!". Picking our way along the ridge, we weren't sure if these cliffs were the very large ones we could see bordering Mt Massif, or the 'car sized boulders' becoming more obvious up along the ridge. We ended up staying close to the ridgeline and on reaching the base of these large leaning boulders we found a large cairn on the right (northern) side as was described in other track notes, and on traversing to the right we made our way up through a snow filled gully to the Massif plateau.
Time from Windy Ridge to Falling Mt - 3.5 hrs
Castle crag to Mt Massif - 4.5 hrs
