Mount Arthur

The Hard Way to Mount Arthur and lost World

Tuesday 14 March 2023

By a happy coincidence, both Dave and Murray suggested a walk to Mount Arthur and The Lost World, and the weather was fine.

The original plan was to start at the western end, of Mount Arthur, pass Scout Hut on to the rocky top then to SAMA Hut and eventually reaching the far eastern end of Lost World via a climbers track. I mentioned that there was a route on the northern flank that leads to the Lost World. It was very unknown what the condition would-be like but it was decided to try that way.

Well, it wasn’t too bad to start with and a pad could be followed down to reach a hollow, where the vegetation was more like a wet forest with Myrtles . Soon though, we were back to the dryer rocky slopes and continuing to descend. It was now after 12:30 and time for lunch, then still more descent until eventually the route, now just marked with the odd rock cairn, took a turn and contoured. At a spot along this way, where there was uncertainty about where to go we experienced a traumatic event. A large boulder came away and rolled whilst Greg was holding on to it.

People raced to where the crashing rock noise along with a dreadful scream came from, to discover Greg pinned partly under a large and heavy rock. He was hanging out upside down under it as we frantically tried to help extract him. One leg was pinned and it was necessary to undo his boot in order to get his foot out. On looking at the scene once Greg was released, we could see how much worse it could have been. The rock had landed on two other rocks with just enough space to avoid crushing Greg.

The long journey out began after Greg had somewhat recovered. As I had the GPS running and in combination with the time on photos, I was able to put together the details after the accident. At first it seemed Greg was able to walk, although he was badly shaken, but gradually it became an almighty effort for him to get up rocks, and there were a lot of them.

From the accident site it took 1 hour for the 700 metres to the Lost World. From the Lost World it was another 1:15 for the 790 metres to the carpark. With the 20-minute break at the Lost World it was 2:35.

Originally I said that It would not be a long day, probably about 3 to 3:30 plus lunch. It turned out to be 6:15 for a 4k walk. Although with all the meandering at the huts and along the way, an actual 5k was recorded by the GPS.

The breakdown of the walk was from start to lunch via Scout and SAMA huts 2:10 for 2.4k. Lunch to accident site a mere 10 minutes and 175 metres. Then the 2:35 from there for the 1490 metres to the carpark.