Mount Styx

Thursday 20 March 2014

From the top of the head it sounded plausible; go on a bushwalk to Mount Styx and because it is not a long walk collect some geocaches on the way, plus stop for a coffee at Mount Field. On the return stop for coffee and get some caches by taking the alternative road back to New Norfolk.

But I had forgotten how much longer it takes to get from Mount Field through to the Styx Valley and didn’t factor in the stopping times for each cache. The result was the completion of in first half of the plan only by 5:00 PM and obviously the second half was completely out of the question. That will have to wait until another day.

It was early afternoon before we set off on the walk. Beforehand some web information provided a couple of road approaches and the Andromeda one was chosen, but it had a locked gate at the start. Back at Jacques Rd we passed an unlocked gate and then the large tree that had been reported over the road a couple of months ago, but had now been cleared. On the day before the trip a call to Forestry revealed that the area of the intended walk had been handed over to PWS and a call into the Mount Field visitor centre gave us hope that gates would be unlocked.

Once past the forestry area, the walk up was through a nice bit of forest before lower scrub with some rocky sections requiring the use of hands to get up and over at times.

Eventually the low scrubby plateau, typical of Tasmanian mountains, was reached and the summit cairn could be readily seen not far away. There were good views of the Snowy Range and the length of Wellington Park could be appreciated. It took 1:25 to ascend and 1:10 back down for the 4.3k return, including 600 metres each way on old logging track.

Nevada Peak from Mount Styx

Mount Styx had never had an appeal to me which accounts for 40 years of bushwalking having elapsed before making the first ascent. It was only after seeing a few photos of the top that sparked an interest. Quite glad to have done the walk.

Mount Styx

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