Bushwalk Australia

Just discovered the forecast for the West Coast is now good for tomorrow. Walford peak is an option - any suggestions re where to leave the Lake Spicer Rd for the easiest approach? Long walk, not so early start, so any ideas appreciated. Thanks.

Tortoise wrote:Just discovered the forecast for the West Coast is now good for tomorrow. Walford peak is an option - any suggestions re where to leave the Lake Spicer Rd for the easiest approach? Long walk, not so early start, so any ideas appreciated. Thanks.

rohjoe did this recently. perhaps PM him. Pretty sure it's a quick climb and easy offtrack around there. We did the Sticht recently. A 4WD and a key for the track would save a long road walk.

Thanks for the info. Would love to do Sticht too one day, so will keep that in mind for next time.

Thought I'd report back after a lovely day.

I'm surprised Walford Peak isn't better known, though I know a lot of people aren't into road bashes of any kind. A friend did it in misty conditions, which resulted in a 'long and boring road walk', and 'little in the way of views'.

As the window opened for good west coast weather, I decided the night before that I'd go. But far from long and boring, I enjoyed being able to soak in the views of Murchison, Lk Rolleston, the Sticht Range, the Tyndalls, the Lake Huntley cliffs, then higher up, most of the OLT - Cradle, Barn, Pelion West, Ossa, the Ducane Range, Geryons etc, Frenchman's Cap and upteen mountains looking towards the SW, a multitude of lakes, etc etc. Walford Peak stands alone enough to have great 360 degr views. Some bits of the road were tedious (small round rocks, slippy loose stones), but I'd be prepared to do it again.

Only problem for me was that if there's some tea tree/bauera/cutting grass to be found, I'll quickly find myself in the middle of it! We found a cairn on the Lk Spicer road in what looked like a reasonable place to start, but very soon I lost the pad (if there was one), so made a slower climb for us (still not long given the small distance).

I managed to pick the route higher up that was probably the easiest, as others had apparently done before, because we picked up a different pad. While there's a cairn on the first bump on the ridge, the high point is a bit further along. Coming down we followed the pad we found, later coming across old stakes, pink tape and cut branches. Easy all the way, no scrub to bash, just a bit overgrown in places. So while this is an actual track, I couldn't find any reference to it anywhere, so maybe it's considered a sensitive area now. I'd be happy to share the easy details of finding it from the road if anyone wants to pm me for it.

It was especially cool to look across to the Lk Huntley cliffs I'd been at the top of a couple of weeks ago, and to Pelion West that I'd since been up. Maybe I'll do a report on that one day too.

Photos following - unfortunately the more distant mountains are too overexposed, so none of them are here.

And a couple more

Lovely. And I'd never even heard of it . . .

I hadn't before the peakbaggers' guide (2000). So many, many lovely places it's introduced me to!

north-north-west wrote:Lovely. And I'd never even heard of it . . .

+1
Thanks for the report, another one goes on the list!

Excellent, thanks for sharing Tortoise.
We did the Sticht Range last Saturday & enjoyed it muchly...I usually don't like road walks much but this one had enough & varied views to keep it interesting & the boulders scattered everywhere gave it a little extra magic.
Must head in for a few nights again sometime & continue on to Walford & Marble Bluff, such an accessible area & probably highly underrated.

Thanks so much. I, too, had never heard of it ... and, like others, have now added it to my "to do" list.

Hi,
Thanks for your post tortoise.
If you could give me some info on where to find the best route up the peak, I would really appreciate it.
I am planning on going in, in a couple of weeks. I have been up twice before but it was about 15 years ago.
Thanks

Follow the Lake Spicer track in until it crests (just past the turnoff to the left), and continue on a little, keeping an eye out for pads heading off to the right. Once you're across the first piece of scrubbier ground, it opens out a bit and you follow the low ridge up and around and then sidle through a slightly scrubbier bit to hit the obvious pad that climbs up steeply on the northern side. Once on that, it's easy. Little bit of rock-hopping up the top to explore all of the summit area.

It's a lovely peak, with good views in decent weather.

Very nice photographs Tortoise, It seems it was Walford Peak I was wondering what I was looking at the other day from the Murchison

Geevesy wrote:Very nice photographs Tortoise, It seems it was Walford Peak I was wondering what I was looking at the other day from the Murchison

Thanks, Geevesy. Yep, it's pretty distinctive.

Kingy wrote:Hi,
Thanks for your post tortoise.
If you could give me some info on where to find the best route up the peak, I would really appreciate it.
I am planning on going in, in a couple of weeks. I have been up twice before but it was about 15 years ago.
Thanks

Hi Kingy, and welcome to the forum.
Sorry I seem to have managed to delete my reply to you. I'll try again.
I reckon we went up the way NNW describes, but we came down an easier way. We continued to the end of a right fork in the road, not too far past the high point of the Lake Spicer Rd. That right hand fork only went a short distance (maybe 100 ish metres??) before it stopped, and it looked like this:



There were old posts and cairns and a real track that we followed down to this point on the road, but it will be more overgrown now. As NNW said, there's not too much scrub to get through anyway, and only a short distance, but I'd still check out what was the actual track. iirc, we used the pad NNW mentioned on the way down as well, so I think they join up. Memory is a bit fuzzy these days...

The fork just leads to an old parking area. But yeah, now I've been reminded that's also the way I came down the first time. And the way I went up and down the second and third times.

btw, if you want to make the trip last a bit longer, there's brilliant camping on the rise the earlier left hand sideroad leads to. Short steeper slippery bit and then a gentler grade and you're up on a hilltop with superb views of Spicer, Plimsoll, Walford, Tyndall and the Sticht.