–submitted by Su Castle
We car pooled along the Oyster River Main and spur until a large rock and tree fall at about 900m.The trail through the clear cut and the forest to the survey marker is becoming an almost followable trail.
We were happy to have Matt’s track to follow to the summit. We maneuvered our way through so many different terrains- open rock, very large boulders (affectionately named by us the “BBB’s” or “Triple B’s”). We were lucky to walk on some soft yet solid snow, and managed a tricky corner higher up by using a short belay off a tree. We traversed some loose rocky gullies and some short scramble sections.
It was a HOT day, we took many short shade and water breaks. By the time we got to the last little down climb on the ridge, the final summit mount looked so far away- but we continued on and were on the summit in under an hour.
The return trip was uneventful. We returned mostly the same way, with a little shortcut glissade down some snow slopes. The way back through the large boulders got us off track a little. Heat and fatigue were probably more to blame than sense of direction!.
Trip stats from Strava: 12 kms, 1335 m elevation gain with a moving time of 3.5 hours. Ha! we were on the trail for almost 11 hours. Our max speed was 16 kms/hr (the butt slide!)
