We are on our way up to the Lake St Clair for a bush-walk. The driving route passes the track that leads up Quamby Bluff. Quamby Bluff is an Abel, which is surprising on a couple of counts. The first is that Quamby Bluff does not seem a very impressive peak, the second is that I wonder how the term “Abel” has been able to persist in these anti-colonialist, inter-sectional, critical theory times. I am sure it is just a matter of time until the term is replaced with something much more palatable to the progressives.
Anyway, the trail head is easy to miss but comes soon after you pass the small community of Golden Valley (heading south). The trail head sign indicates that five hours should be allowed for the return walk. I do not profess to understand how Tasmania Parks and Wildlife Service manages their tracks. It’s not altogether clear to me (unpopular opinion ahead, brace yourselves) that the agency is not staffed by petty bureaucrats drunk on power; but it won’t take that long. Just over two hours should be plenty for most regular bush-walkers.
It’s a pretty nice walk when you are driving by. I like tracks that go straight up. Why faff around. If you are going up, go up, if you are going down, go down. I once walked up a mountain somewhat ostentatiously called Matterhorn Mountain in Oregon’s Eagle Cap Wilderness (it didn’t look much like a Matterhorn). The route to the top branches off Ice Lake trail and requires a short easy “off-track” section which was all well and good. It was the 7,000 switchbacks needed to gain the ridge that were tedious. I think I walked about 38 kilometres that day and I was foot sore at the end. Thirty of the 38 kilometres were on unnecessary switchbacks.
But back to Quamby Bluff. The track leads past a small monastery and then proceeds uphill through some forest to cross a talus field and emerges onto the plateau via a shrubby gully. From the top of the gully it is a gentle stroll south to the top.
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