Ironstone Mountain

A number of tracks pierce the Western Tiers from the valleys to the north, most (all?) fork off the Westrope Road which runs west to east along the base of the tiers at around 700 metres ASL (above sea level). It is two years since we were last along the Westrope Road to walk a loop up Mother Cummings Peak and, in that time, the road has deteriorated some. The road bed is still good but the road itself is increasingly narrow as the forest grows in from either side. Nevertheless, we parked at the intersection of the Westrope Road and a small spur road that leads up to the start of the Western Creek trail. There is a loop walk along this trail – an endeavour that would take you about 1.5 hours and would be a singularly unrewarding walk for the effort involved. We did not realise this and set off immediately from the end of the spur road on the lower half of the loop track.

There were a few fallen trees to navigate and, in places, the track was vague. Throughout it was rocky, rooty, and slippery, the dark rainforest humid and wet year round. An hour or so after leaving the vehicle we intercepted the “top” half of the loop walk and some signage. For a short while, the track improved and was well banked into the hillside, but this lasted only 10 or 15 minutes before the character reverted to rocks, roots, talus, ups and downs, all while sidling along the hillside above roaring Western Creek. After a further half an hour, a side creek with a small waterfall is crossed on a sturdy bridge. Without the bridge this would be a difficult crossing as the creek is a foaming precipitous torrent.

In another 15 minutes, the main creek is crossed on rocks and the track finally emerges from the dark forest onto the scrubby plateau. Ahead on a hillside, the new outhouse that is nearby to the old Whiting Hut is visible, and, although it looks a long way, the going is much easier and the old hut is soon reached. We were about two hours to the hut which is awfully slow for the distance covered and a sad reminder that I am now an old lady. It’s not a fast track to walk, in fact, in places, the track is more a scramble than a walk, but, ten years ago, I would cover that terrain much faster.

Beyond the hut the track quickly becomes indistinct but is still easily followed for perhaps a kilometre until low scrub gives a view to a series of narrow talus slopes that ascend towards a pass to the northeast of some steeper crags that run west down from the Ironstone plateau. Looking at the Ironstone plateau, there is a prominent craggy buttress to the far right (climbers or “lookers” right) and then two smaller little crags to the left. The aim is to ascend 200 metres to the plateau via this pass. If you walk up the talus fields about half way up, cairns appear and a rough footpad ascends to the pass. Lose this footpad at your peril as to either side, the scrub is thick.

Ironstone Mountain is really a large flat plateau and once at the pass the major difficulty is working out where the summit trig is. A compass helps, but the best route we found did not head straight to the trig station, rather it followed areas of lower scrub and talus to finally arrive at the sturdy and familiar black circle trig. There is a good view from the top with all the familiar peaks of Cradle Mountain/Lake St Clair National Park easily seen, and of course, the lakes; the hundreds of lakes, tarns, ponds, streams and rivulets of the Central Plateau.

It had taken us four hours to reach the top so we did not have time to linger for much longer than 15 minutes before retracing our route. We were slightly faster back to the hut, although we did have to reverse our path part way down from the pass as we had veered off the footpad. In general, the footpad will be to your left (skiers left) as you descend but it is easy to trend right and lose the footpad on false leads. Back at the hut, we had another quick break and removed all the detritus that had collected in our shoes, and then began the slow walk out.

Only on the way down the track did I realise just how rough a track it actually is. This is frequently the case. Tracks that seem like a pleasant gradient on the way up, suddenly seem quite steep once you begin the eccentric loading against gravity that walking downhill entails. However, it’s not the steepness of the track that makes it difficult. It is the rocky, rooty, technical terrain all of which is covered with a slick of moisture and is slippery underfoot. At the upper track junction, we took the upper trail back which was a lot better than the lower trail having a reasonable benched in trail for part of the distance. We may have shaved a further 10 or 20 minutes off our ascent time but, overall, this trip will take as long on the way up as it does on the way out.