Mt Jagungal Basecamp - April 2002

Day 0 - Only six in the group this year - the core of the Six Foot Club - Richard, JohnD, JohnO, Yarro, Paul and Phil.  We set of in two cars from Beecroft / Epping around 3.00p with a stop at the now regular Chinese in Goulburn for dinner and a coffee in Gundagai.  Then onto a Tumut hotel with a Jean Claude Van Damme movie on PayTV before bed.  Nice change from the usual Cooma first night.

Day 1 - Breakfast in the hotel - never again !! - way too late and too expensive.  Onto Cabramurra and the now familiar General Store for last pit stop and "real" coffee before pulling off the road at Tooma Reservoir and the Dargals Fire Trail entrance to The Jagungal Wilderness.

Some big climbs - pushing more than riding - to Tongue Bend (a memorable spot from 2 years earlier) and then onto Hellhole Fire Trail.  We quickly understood why the trail was called "Hellhole" with more big pushing out of the valley. 

Late afternoon we hit the Round Mountain Fire Trail for a couple kilometres more riding to Derkhous hut near Mt Jagungal (The Big Bogong).  We didn't stay in the hut preferring to stay in tents on top of the hill overlooking "The Bogong" - great campsite, beautiful view made even more spectacular as the mist came in an filled the valley.

Sunset on Day 1 from basecamp / Start of Day 2 / O'Keefe's Hut

Richard at the top of the down hill to Happy Jack Spillway / Phil at the bottom of the downhill / Happy Jack Spillway and the big climb ahead

Day 2 - "The Memorable Day" - A day we'll remember for the rest of our lives.  Not because of the weather or getting lost or breakdowns or injuries - just a really long day.  With an 8.40am start and an hour easy riding to O'Keefe's Hut were we already an hour behind schedule.  We shortened the stop to pick up time and then hit the grass of the track to the SMA service road.  The grass was like mud - tougher than riding up hills at times.  We started to realise that time and light were getting tight so only had a short lunch stop by a creek followed by a long uphill on the service road.  Finally we looked down on the Happy Jack Spillway and enjoyed more quick downhill and a very short rest Before !!! a 600m over 4 km climb out of the valley. 

It was now about 4.00pm with still over 18 kms to base camp.  John and Phil were elected to ride ahead over an unnamed trail.  We very quickly realised why it was unnamed - it was only just there and in the fading light really hard to follow.  High brush, unclear paths, hard pushes through scrub and virtually no riding for an hour.  Finally we saw the bitumen road and broke out of the trail at Round Mountain Car Park.

John and Phil hit the Round Mountain Fire Trail intent on getting the fire going and dinner cooking for the rest.  Then they hit the intersect and a big decision - turn left to Round Mountain Hut or go on in the dark to base camp.  It was 5.30, sunset at 6.00 and 13 kms to go.  John headed down the 400m section to check out the Hut.  Phil waited for the others.  At about 5.50 the others caught up and are convinced the best place to go was base camp for warmth, food and shelter.

Phil headed down to let John know but he'd decided to stay with a camper in the Hut.  With a couple of torches the five of us headed into the sunset seeking basecamp within 2 hours.  By 6.30 it was dark - really dark but Yarro's light was fantastic.  Paul and Phil pushed ahead a little to start the fire and get food on for the others getting a little tired by now.  Pauls knowledge from walking the same track with Richard two weeks earlier was invaluable.  He knew when to get water and when base camp was coming up.

At around 8.00p Paul and Phil made it to camp and first order of business was dry clothes.  Next was the fire and then cooking the food to recharge all our batteries.  Such a huge sense of achievement swept through the group.

Day 3 - Late rise - 6.30 am - on a sunny day and the decision is base camp, repairs and cards for the day.  John arrived about 8.30am after finding it tough to sleep with limited warmth.  There was plenty to talk about from the day before.

Late afternoon some other bike riders came past heading for Valentines !!.  Given the time thought they'd be lucky to make Gray Mare.

"Engineering Services" (JohnO and Yarro) had a ball spending most of the day working on Yarros' new bike.

Dinner and bed after some packing and preparing the bikes for the ride out the next day.

Beginning of Day 3 and "Where's JD?" / Spontaneous eruption of the inner tube of JohnO's Spec / Fun for "Engineering Services" on Day 3

Another kind of fun in the sun on Day 3 - Is that Phil and JD fast asleep? / Day 4 - The Big Bogong in the background on the Round Mountain Fire Trail

Day 4 - With only 13 kms to Round Mountain Car Park and on a track we'd walked in the dark, and fully recharged batteries, it was an easy ride.  We did it in just over an hour comfortably.  No rest needed so we hit the downhill on bitumen back to the cars at Oglvies.  So much fun.

After a quick wash under Yarros' fancy pressure water spray bottle and a pack of the gear into the car we headed to Tumut for a late lunch - hamburgers - sooo bad :-).  With one stop for petrol at Gundagai and another for coffee and driver change at Marulan we were home before 7.30pm.

A very memorable trip indeed.