Mount Charles

October 22, 2024

Mount Charles

Tuesday 22 October 2024
The approach was from Lachlan along the Jefferys Track, which once beyond the last house, is still terrible with large and deep rutted sections created by off road vehicles. Once at the East-West fire trail things became much more pleasant all the way to the turn off to Mount Charles. It took longer than expected to reach the summit both overall and in the actual summit climb. In getting to the summit, we found a couple of spots where the scrub caused us indecision as to which way to go, which contributed to almost an hour being taken. The return from the top to the East West was almost twice as quick and, with hardly any uphill on the vehicle tracks, was considerably quicker along these as well,
The walk was 17k and took 7¼ hours overall with actual walking of 6 hours. The inward time excluding morning tea break taking 3:27 and the return 2:35. In addition to the summit climb, the extra time for inward is partly explained by the time spent looking at the deep ruts and hollows caused by vehicles on the Jefferys Track plus slower going uphill.