We arrived at the Round Mountain car park at about 7 pm Friday Night after a very wet, windy and foggy drive from Canberra, it was raining so we put our wet weather gear on for the one and a half kilometer walk to the Round Mountain hut, where we planned to spend the night, Dave got the hut fire going while I cooked the rice and heated up the curry and cracked the bottle of wine, We had a very pleasant evening sitting around the fire while it rained heavily and gale force winds blew outside. The hut has some bunks that are attached to the frame and during the night we where woken up several times by roaring gale force winds, one gust shook us quite violently in our bunks, we had originally planned to sleep in our tents but I recon if I we had we would have ended up being blown off the side of Round Mountain.
Saturday morning, Dave filling the log book at Round Mountain Hut just before we set off to Mt Jagungal
Crossing a icy cold swollen Tumut River, it was also raining at the time which did not help us in trying to stay dry
Looking back to the Tumut river from the Farmyard Ridge Trail, that is snow in the background
On top of the ridges we where covered in thick fog so not much was to be had with views, after a about 4 hours of easy walking we made it to the newly rebuilt O'Keefes hut, O'Keefes hut had burnt down it the January 2003 bushfires, we had lunch and then emptied our packs in preparation for the walk up the Northern side of Mt Jagungal. Mt Jagungal was still covered in fog but as we have both been up the top in good weather we decided to go up anyway if anything just for the experience. We had not been up the northern side before and being in thick fog we where doing it a bit blind, the way we went had a lot of boulders and some rock climbing.
Dave climbing up a steep face, after trying we decided that in the wet conditions not pursue this route any further, and easier way was just around the corner.
Me on top of Mt Jagungal, note the great view or lack of it.
We descended via the easier south western route and this is a view of Mt Jagungal peak from just below
This is the view from Mt Jagungal just below the cloud cover looking west
The newly rebuilt O'Keefes Hut
The fire place at O'Keefes, and comfortable chairs (no we did not bring the chairs in) the hut has been lined with some old news papers from the 1930's that have been donated to the hut, it gave us some very interesting reading, but unfortunately some are getting damaged and vandalized already.
My sleeping bag on the floor in the bedroom
On Sunday we woke to a beautiful sunny day but unfortunately we had to go back, this is the view of Mt Jagungal from north on the Grey Mare Trail, the water in the foreground was frozen solid, we walked back the way we came via farmyard Ridge and Tumut River.
Even though we did not have great views all of the time it was a great relaxing and very enjoyable walk.
Tony
