Truchanas Huon Pine Forest

[rangersac]

After hearing about the recent fire scare at Olegas Bluff, and seeing the still evident effects of the Gell River fire on the wet gallery forests of the Gordon this summer it's motivated me to try and make it over to the Truchanas Pine reserve before the seemingly inevitable climate catastrophe renders it a distant memory. As I'm not a white water paddler though, I'd be interested to hear of anyone who has made it in recently either via the old Hamilton Range route from the Gordon Dam, or via Pearce Basin on Lake Gordon, which used to have a taped route. Thanks in advance

[doogs]

The area is still closed as the fire is still smouldering in the peat, and will probably continue to do so until there's been a decent spell of rain fall:
https://www.fire.tas.gov.au/Show?pageId ... teID=90380
Before the fire started I saw a few packrafting trips had made their way in from Pearce Basin in early summer using the vaguely tagged route to the Denison. However, following the river down to the Truchanas Pine Reserve is a horribly difficult walk and only for the foolish. The Hamilton Range access is apparently very overgrown and difficult these days through little use. Basically, it's not an easy place to access without rafting at least some sections of the Denison.

[rangersac]

Thanks doogs. What I had in my head was almost a direct east-west yomp from Peace Basin over to the reserve. There's one ridge to cross, and no doubt there'd be plenty of ugly scrub to deal with but in a straight line it looks to be a touch over 3km so not beyond the realms of possibility.

[Azza]

The Hamilton wasn't too bad a few years ago, but yes its starting to get overgrown and harder to follow.
Its not seeing much traffic these days.
As doogs said following the river up or down is pretty nasty, a lot of scrambling a couple of metres off the ground in a twisted mess of scrub and trees along steep banks.
Some sections were quite nice with open forest along the banks particularly around the reserve.
But we were lucky to do more than 3 km per day.
I have memories of going from the reserve to the rivers crossing to the hamilton only took the morning and wasn't bad compared the previous few days we'd endured.
For us the river crossing was pretty scarying, water levels were up and it was fairly wide.
The packraft option sounded like the best one to me.
All my shell layer was shredded such was how fierce the scrub was..