This has been on my Aussie bucket list for a couple of years now and, with the Queensland border closure scuppering a planned road trip from Brisbane to Cairns, the opportunity to climb Australia's highest mountain finally presented itself. I was initially hoping to make it to the summit of ‘Mount Koz’ on New Year’s Day; this seemed like the most poetically satisfying option. However, where hiking at (relatively) high altitude is concerned, practicality had to take precedence and so we took to sifting through ten days of weather reports so that we were summit-bound on the best weather day. There's nothing worse than getting to the top of a mountain and being unable to see a thing.
This being such a poor year for travelling anywhere, we also decided to max out on accommodation costs by booking a chalet for two nights at Crackenback, near Jindabyne. It was an investment which was to pay off in unforeseen ways. Not only did the booking allow us to avoid the very worst experiences guaranteed by staying in yet another run-down Aussie motel but it also meant that at dawn and dusk we would find ourselves sharing the grounds with a mob of kangaroos. I must say that sipping freshly brewed coffee outside in the morning whilst watching a mother and her joey enjoying the landscape as much as I, was, in itself, worth the exorbitant price tag. Looking out to the mountainsides from the chalet I quickly got a sense of the changeability of the weather in this part of New South Wales; quick downpours, blackening clouds followed by bright blue skies. We stuffed our backpacks accordingly not knowing what to expect en-route to the top of Australia’s tallest mountain; windproof macs and layers and gloves. Much of it was surplus to requirements in the end; hiking ever upwards at a fast pace inevitably meant we were shedding layers rather than adding them. Still, better safe than sorry.
We set off from the chalet at around eight in the morning to be sure we’d get to Thredbo with enough time to find a parking spot and be there for when the chairlift opened. As I stepped out of the car I could feel a distinct fresh Alpine nip in the air which had me thankful we’d been cautious in our preparations. With formalities complete we were soon on the chairlift and being cranked upwards to the start of our 13km hike. There were plenty of others undertaking the same endeavour but, on such a vast mountain, we soon fanned out, resulting in a tranquil morning spent in the bright sunshine passing exquisite Alpine flowers and hearing the faint bubblings of the famed Snowy River of ‘The Man from…’ renown. There was time to admire Lake Cootapatamba - Australia's highest lake – as well as use the facilities of Australia’s highest public convenience.
This is the highest and longest hike I have ever undertaken when compared to my previous efforts on Wales' Mount Snowdon (1085m) and Lesotho's Drakensberg-Maloti mountain range (2080m). I have also survived an altitude sickness-inducing overnight stay in a yurt on a mountaintop in Kyrgyzstan at 3012 metres but this didn’t involve any hike to the top. And so, reaching the summit of Mount Koz, two thousand plus metres above Australia, felt like a real achievement. For a second or two I must’ve been the highest person in the country. Unsurprisingly my descent was a little less fast-paced and less dignified, my manly struts up the mountain replaced by hobbling and tripping down it. I didn’t care; in my tiredness there was a sense of earned satisfaction that I had hiked to the top of Australia’s highest mountain.
Journey origin
