East of Narrabri in northern NSW,
Kaputar National Park preserves an eroded volcanic environment.
There are deep valleys, steep cliff-lines and ancient volcanoes
strewn across a mostly dry eucalpyt forest. A big chunk of the park
is now wilderness, but, a sealed road leads all the way to the top of
the Nandewar Range, and you can virtually drive to the summit of
Mount Kaputar, the highest peak in the park.
Dusk over Kaputar
Not so Mount Yulludunida which is a
rocky 1225 metre peak at the western end of the park. A good but steep staired National Park
track leads up to a pass about half a kilometre NE of the top of
Mount Yulludunida. The track ends near cracked slabs below the
summit ridge and a cairned route continues for a short distance
before scrambling up cracked rocks and easy slabs covered with
chicken heads and holds to the north-south ridge. Good solid
scrambling along the ridge leads to the summit where there is a big
cairn and lovely views with scattered old volcanic escarpments
around. Continuing on, we scrambled down to a col on the ridge and
up to a second summit.
On the Skyline Traverse
A short distance down from the second
summit we got to a slightly tricky step that is best tackled by
down-climbing steep rock on the west side for a short distance until
you can traverse back along slabs to the ridge proper. We passed our
packs down this section and some folks might appreciate a rope. The
climbing is easy and the rock solid, but it is exposed. A bit
further on there was another section where we took packs off to down
climb a narrow slot.
A bit more scrambling and we were off
the ridge below some more shorter buttresses this time on the east
side. We scrambled back up onto two more tops, one separated by the
other by a deep chimney that again required taking our packs off.
Kaputar views
Continuing along the ridge there are a
lot more little steps to scramble over. We, however, opted to descend
from this point and scrambled down into the flats to the east. There
are a lot of bare rock slabs in the valley, so it pays to plan out
your route back to the trail before you descend. If you pick it
right, you can walk back to the access track on open slabs with
virtually no bush-bashing.
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