Mount Carrialoo

Climbing mountains in Australia is not the same as climbing mountains in Canada. Below is a picture from a weekend camp in the Valhalla Range, not far from where we lived in Canada. There are nine mountains in the photo and we have climbed all of them; some as part of a traverse of four peaks in one day, some multiple times by multiple different routes (I’ve done three different routes up Gimli Peak) and we even did a first ascent of a new route on the furthest to the left (Mount Dag).

In contrast, the picture below is of Mount Moollattoo. It’s clear that climbing mountains in Australia, even if you go to Australia’s most rugged state, Tasmania, is just not the same. Before the dear reader even thinks of arguing the point, it’s been done, go here.

Different types of mountains, different experiences, but I still have this obsessive yen to get to the top of things no matter how insignificant. Mount Carrialoo is pretty insignificant really. The elevation gain is under 500 metres, and the top is scrub covered, but the cliff edge does offer lovely views of Morton National Park, and, it’s right there so why would you not go?

We did what most people seem to do, although possibly in a reverse direction, up one pass onto the plateau, along the top and back down a different pass using McPhails Fire Trail (FT) for access. The newest NSW topographic maps show McPhail’s FT only going to the border with Morton National Park but the FT actually continues north then turns east and climbs up another escarpment to meet the Promised Land FT. It is handy to have access to the old maps as some of these old FT’s are still passable. McPhails FT is in good shape for walking. Some satellite imagery (for example, the SIX maps version) clearly shows a foot-pad along the plateau of Mount Carrialoo although this foot-pad is hard to see on newer imagery on Google Earth. The foot-pad is there, but, as other parties before us have discovered only on the western part of Mount Carrialoo.

Right below the southeast corner of Mount Carrialoo, a cairn marks a vague foot-pad and pass up onto the plateau. This is right where McPhails FT first meets the base of the mountain. An old rope is tied to a piton (semi-secure) to assist with the only tricky step up. The foot-pad continues vaguely up but soon disappears completely at another cairn. We took the most obvious line towards the centre of the plateau figuring that this would intersect the foot-pad if indeed the foot-pad still existed. The going is mostly reasonable except for one saddle, only 10 metres lower than the surrounding terrain, but obviously wet enough to grow thick scrub. On the western side of this, we did find vague discontinuous foot-pads which eventually, about 250 metres from the trig, coalesced into a very defined and open foot-pad. From there, it was lovely walking to the trig and, continuing to follow the foot-pad north west to a view point over Morton National Park and Shoalhaven Gorge. Apparently, there is a pass below this spot and with a good deal of bush-whacking, it would be possible to get down to Yarrunga Creek.

After lunch on the cliff edge, we walked back to the trig and tried to follow the foot-pad back towards the eastern end of the plateau. We were a little more successful on the way east than west but the pad is discontinuous and the thick saddle needs to be crossed. We drifted our way up to the short cliffs on the north east side of Mount Carrialoo and easily scrambled down through the 15r escarpment, and, drifting further north to the escarpment edge, steeply down through mostly open forest to intersect McPhails FT. From there, it is a pleasant, easy and quick walk back to the trail head.