Bushwalk Australia

Any Open Street Map bushwalkers interested?

This spring will be the official opening of the "Snowies Iconic Walk Phase 2" in Kosciuszko National Park. This will be a brand new 5.6km stretch of alpine hiking trail built to modern standards that follows the Snowy River between Illawong Lodge and Charlotte Pass, and features the brand new Spencers Creek Bridge - now Australia's highest suspension bridge (1627m).

Unfortunately I'm stuck on the wrong side of a state border for the foreseeable future and am unable to survey and trace this new section for OSM. If there's any keen walkers on the list who are permitted to travel to Kosci, I think your data would be a valuable contribution to the OSM project.

With this track being new and coming under the Snowies Iconic Walk banner I'm sure this will become a very popular walk. Being able to map what's on the ground so quickly, I'm hoping the OSM community will be able to map the new 5.6km section so that downstream hiking apps can leverage our data this summer. Further, once signage is complete, this will be the first major realignment of the Australian Alps Walking Track in quite some time.

If there's anyone with survey or trace info, I'd be happy to collaborate and help with the mapping.

You might get a quicker response over at ski.com.au in the BC Chatter thread. At least one active member there is on the work crew and you might get the earliest possible result accordingly.

Yes, but it still means a lot of road walking, which is dead boring. Going over the Main Range is far nicer. A highlight in fact.
I gather Parks refuse to allow AAWT signs to be placed there.

Cheers
Roger

rcaffin wrote:Yes, but it still means a lot of road walking, which is dead boring. Going over the Main Range is far nicer. A highlight in fact.
I gather Parks refuse to allow AAWT signs to be placed there.

Umm, I'm not sure there is much road bashing on the planned route. There maybe some between Guthega and Perisher but we really do not know that route yet.

And you can choose to loop around the MR trail to get from the top of Hannells to Charlotte Pass if you want to. From CP onwards follows roughly old trails but well tweaked alignments rather than over over the old or just parallel to the old.

So I'm really unsure of your point.

Yes I have skied and wandered over good portions of the CP to Perisher section of the trails which is really where the new bits are.

Mapping complete. Thanks!

The previous "official" AAWT route followed the Kosciuszko Road blacktop from Charlottes to Smiggins, so the new alignment is already far nicer and incorporates more of the Main Range Walk plus this Snowies Iconic Phase 2 section.

It's highly unlikely the official AAWT will ever route over Twynham to Schlink, for good reason. The Windswept Feldmark is critically endangered and bushwalking tracks signficantly impact these pant communities, and bushwalker safety concerns of the wildly unpredictable weather up on the Main Range, particularly when navigating on the Rolling Grounds. "Unofficial" AAWT hiking options, such as the unmarked trail on the Main Range, are left up to the bushwalker to weigh up their own personal circumstances.