Tantangara Mountain

The old argument about trail sharing sites, surfaced on a blog I follow yesterday. It’s a tedious argument and driven only by some kind of fake elitism, and, much like other far left debates, makes zero sense from a logical perspective. It’s really about protecting your own turf from the undeserving interlopers, which is a bit weird coming as it does from the inclusive crowd. But, it spurred me to have a look at AllTrails for Tantangara Mountain because the government topographic maps are all a bit inaccurate.

Earlier versions of the standard topographic map call the 1745 metre high point Tantangara Mountain but have no tracks marked while the later version shows the track from the Snowy Mountains Highway but not from Rocky Plains Campground and leave off any names from the high point labelling the top simply SMA0093. I had to use AI to find out what SMA represents, apparently, Snowy Mountains Authority and it means the map was produced during the planning of the Snowy Mountains Hydroelectric scheme.

I don’t actually think AllTrails is very useful as almost any trail/route I have ever looked up on the site says something like “very hard, extra severe, you will likely die.” Mount Jagungal, for example, is described as “hard” (even though there is a good trail all the way to the top), has only four reviews and gets three stars (out of five) from most raters. Most real bushwalkers, who will have Mount Jagungal on their tick list lying as it does in the Jagungal Wilderness and being prominent from many locations will scratch their heads at this and wonder what the raters have been smoking or not, as I thought hash was supposed to make you mellow and happy.

But back to Mount Tantangara. The current topographic map (and AllTrails) makes it look like you should park near Black Walters Creek and follow the trail (an old road) east to the top. This works but the problem arises as soon as you try to legally park. One on side of the Snowy Mountains Highway is a chain up area. I’m not aware of any laws about parking in chain up bays (nor is AI) but it does not seem like a good idea as you could get a ticket. On the other side of the road is a gravel pull-out, ideal for parking except for the sign banning parking.  The better option, is to park down at Rocky Plains area, either at Sawyers Hut or near the campground and follow the track – not marked on any map or AllTrails north to join the track from the Snowy Mountains Highway. The starting elevation is roughly the same but the walk is about 2 kilometres shorter.

It’s a very pleasant walk. We saw some feral horses down near Black Walters Creek, despite heavy culls they are everywhere. The entire walk is easy and scenic owing to burnt forest and the ridge line track. From the top, we used a compass to locate our next couple of destinations: Tabletop Mountain and Mount Jagungal, and also Mount Morgan which we had completed the day before. Mount Jagungal looks like a real mountain from this location and will pique any peak-baggers interest, unless, of course, you read AllTrails and then you would simply shrug, turn over, and go back to sleep.