Mushroom Rocks, Baw Baw NP - in the snow

[bigkev]

After last Fridays big dump of snow I decided to head up to Mushroom Rocks in Baw Baw NP to check it out covered in the white stuff. Their was a little more snow than I anticipated though, well before reaching the small town of Erica I was driving past snow in the paddocks. As it turned out I had to park after only getting around 1 kilometre up Mt Erica Road, this was due to tree falls mainly but the deep snow would have stopped me eventually anyway.

I actually started walking about 1 kilometre up Mt Erica Road, well below the AAWT which is coming in here.

The walk up through the fresh snow on Mt Erica Road was actually really nice, a real winter wonderland kind of scene. By the time I got up to the Mt Erica Car Park the snow was almost knee deep. The track from the car park to Mushroom Rocks was fairly hard going (for an old bloke!) apart from wading through the ever deepening snow I had to tunnel underneath a few sections of snow covered trees that were basically forming a snow covered canopy over the track.

The snow laden trees made the walking track section of the walk tough, in spots I had to tunnel underneath the snow laden branches pushing my pack in front of me.

It took me around 4 hours to get up to Mushroom Rocks and according to the GPS I walked just over 8 kilometres on the climb (yeah, I'd parked a long way down Mt Erica Road). The sun appeared while I ate my lunch at Mushroom Rocks so the walk back down was almost as slow, although that was mainly due to me stopping to take photos. Over all I climbed 559m and walked 16.1 kilometres for the day, all in all a good day out really. As usual I've done a post on my blog if anyone wants to check out some more photos, http://goinferalonedayatatime.blogspot. ... -park.html

Mushroom Rocks

It was an awesome days walking breaking tracks through the fresh snow.

[gayet]

Gorgeous!
What else can one say.

[bigkev]

Thanks gayet, glad you like! It was an awesome day, actually it looks like this Saturday may be similar:)

[GBW]

Looks beautiful bigkev. Thanks.

[JulianS]

Looks fantastic.

Can I ask - did you have snow shoes or were post-holing?

[bigkev]

Hi Julian, no snow shoes on this walk. If I managed to stay on the track the snow got up to a bit over knee deep, going around the snow laden bushes sometimes meant pushing through snow that was a little deeper. It was a good walk and being a retrace I could always just turn around if it all got too hard. Cheers Kevin.

[JulianS]

Nice - thanks for the info

[Tortoise]

Your post evoked great memories, bigkev. I had a wonderful camp at Mushroom Rocks in the snow, finishing the southern end of the AAWT in reverse. As the snow was falling during the night, I was worried re having to post-hole halfway down the mountain. But in fact it was only a foot or so of snow, which made it easy to make our own steps wherever we wanted to put them. The track was still quite follow-able, and with us being almost dwarfs, the overhanging snow-laden branches weren't a problem. It was a most delightful walk.

[bigkev]

Hi Tortoise, yes its a beautiful spot in the snow. I found it a bit harder getting underneath the snow laden bushes as I''m 6'3" and with not the most svelte figure I'm trying to organize the AAWT starting Sept/Oct 2017 (if I can get enough time off work), the theory being that I should get a bit of snow still on the ground at that time of the year...we'll see. Its definitely more pleasing to the eye with a bit of snow about.

[paidal_chalne_vala]

It's nice, I like !

[Lophophaps]

Kev, nice pictures and words. The snow was a long way down!

Starting the AAWT in September you will almost certainly have snow above 1500 metres, and especially on areas over 1800 metres such as Jagungal, the Main Range, Cobberas, Mt Wills, Bogong, Bogong High Plains, Viking, Speculation to McDonald and points south. Some roads will be closed, making putting in food drops hard. You may wish to start a thread in the AAWT forum.

[paidal_chalne_vala]

Anybody taking on the AAWT in Sept./ Oct. will need to carry snow shoes.

[bigkev]

Hi Guys,

Thanks for checking out the post. The AAWT thing is still firming up, I'm really able to leave any time from late September to Cup Weekend, I'll wait and see what kind of winter we get next year before finally deciding. I'll definitely be checking out the AAWT section of the forum as I get a bit closer.

Cheers Kevin