Two marathons and Kosciusko Main Range hike

Mt Kosciusko summit

Time to do some road trips this year. I started by combining a hike on Mt Stirling with the Wangaratta Marathon. The hike was great, I did a thing called the Summit Loop which turned out to be short, only 14 km and I didn’t really need to camp, but as I was carrying all my gear I wanted to camp and I camped just 2 kms before the finish of the hike. The bushfires hadn’t impacted this area but there were dead snow gums remaining from an earlier fire. 

The marathon didn’t go real well. It was a warm and humid day and I went out too fast, although at the time it didn’t feel very fast. By half way (it was a repeated loop course) I felt rotten and slowed dramatically then had to walk a great deal of the second lap. The scenery was not interesting at the time but it may have been more interesting if I had felt better. I managed to smile at the volunteers and tried to act positive but it was my worst marathon experience for 6 years. I bust a gut to pass 2 women towards the end of the race only to have them both pass me in the finish chute.

Luckily I didn’t have to wait long to have a shot at running a marathon properly. Two weeks later I went to Orange. On the way I did a hike at Mt Nangar, a place I had not previously heard of, where I hiked up the mountain and had a great view over the park. I also went for a short hike on Mt Canobolas, a mountain I last went up in 1989 by bike.

The Orange Marathon went well (despite an awful night at a very noisy hotel). I started out at a comfortably slow pace, ignored what everyone else was doing and set myself a challenge of passing at least 10 runners in the second half; I passed 16! The route didn’t look exciting on paper - an out and back with a strange kink in the middle, and much on a sealed road - but the roads were closed to traffic and the route went past paddocks of cows, sheep and even a camel, and through a few tiny settlements. It featured long gradual hills, mostly downhill on the return when we also had a tailwind. I felt myself running back strongly and that’s a nice place to be. My only problem with this race was that there was no food at the aid stations, only water and sports drink. As soon as I realised this my stomach started rumbling so I had to tell it to shut up. At the 30 km aid station I saw a banana and asked who it belonged to; the volunteer said I could have it and I was really happy.

The following day I drove to Charlotte Pass in order to hike the Kosciusko Main Range. I hadn’t been there either since 1989. The national park was in fog when I arrived and I only walked 3 kms, enough to cross the Snowy River and climb above the tree line onto the plateau, before pitching my tent behind some rocks. I didn’t realise how sloping the site was and all night I was sliding off my sleeping pad.

In the morning it was still foggy (and freezing cold) but the clouds were swirling around so I got intermittent views, and what a great landscape it was: grassy and rocky peaks everywhere, layer upon layer. It’s odd to see no trees or bushes whatsoever except for some forested slopes far in the distance; there was a complete absence of animal wildlife, but there were a few birds hanging around, mainly black crows. There were plenty of little clumps of wildflowers. I took the side track to look at Blue Lake (not very blue on this cloudy day) and then went up Mt Twynam, Australia's third highest peak. The last part was off trail but easy to see where the summit trig was, and I had reasonable views from the top.

I continued on the ridge passing more lakes and the weather was clearing. There were so few people around that I just sat on the trail to have a coffee and snack. Then I detoured off to climb Mt Townsend, Australia's second highest peak. None of these trails are signposted. There was a trail all the way up this one but I lost it fairly soon, however it was easy to see where to go. Then I noticed a group of hikers who were clearly on a trail and I scrambled up to where they were. It was odd to see more hikers here on this minor side trip than in the whole of the rest of the day on a popular trail. One of them was concerned about my ability to get up Townsend, a bit unjustified although there was a rough scramble to reach the very top. When I came down I could easily see where I’d gone wrong. 

It wasn’t far to Kozzie from here and the peak was as unassuming as I'd remembered. It was completely clear on top but cold. I walked down and then turned towards Thredbo at Rawson Pass to look for somewhere to camp. I went down to Lake Copatamba to get some water then climbed above the trail where I could get out of sight of passers by. I found a huge open area with boulders and camped there on flat ground.

I got up early (the top of Kozzie was in a cloud) and walked down to Seaman’s Hut where I chatted with 2 bike riders. I told them I had slept in the hut on my previous visit. Then I continued down the dirt road alongside the valley carved by the Snowy River, stopping for breakfast (I just took water from a puddle) and to sit in the sun, and I was soon back at my car. The whole loop was 36 kms.