13 March 2022

4th attempt...after rain, wind and lambing stymied earlier plans to undertake this walk!

This time the weather forecast was reasonable so five of us set off from the small car park at the bottom of Porter's Pass. The grassy track initially followed the Old Coach Road but soon deviated off and began to climb up another path. It was easy and open though steep. After an hour we stopped for morning tea at a collection of huge rocks where we could enjoy the views back down into the valley. And then a variable climb up towards the top of the valley, sometimes flat, at times even downhill before rising again. A small patch of bush provided a pleasant change from snowgrass and the views were always wonderful.

     We reached the junction where we turned left to go higher and would come back to on our descent. The initial cloudy sky had cleared sufficiently to afford gorgeous sunny views of Lake Lyndon far below and the road westwards.

     It took another 30 minutes to climb up ( and sometimes down ) the slippery shingle track to the top of our walk at Trig M. At this point the track, while it does carry on to Rabbit Hill, is no longer marked. But we stopped here. We were now back into foggy cloud with a cool wind so we dropped down a little to one side out of the easterly to enjoy a rest and our  lunch. The views down to Lake Lyndon and across to Mt. Lyndon were mostly obscured by clouds but every so often they would clear a little and we could briefly enjoy the marvellous sight.

    The return trip was largely downhill with occasional short uphill stretches. At the previously mentioned junction we carried on along  instead of retracing our footsteps back down. It was flat or downhill until we branched off from the main track (that leads down to Starvation Gully and the road over Porter's Pass) and went up a little to join a path that ran along a fence line.

     We followed this path along the easy tops until we started a very steep and slippery descent to where it joined the Old Coach Road. This is very close to the busy Porter's Pass road but quickly descends away from it, back down into the valley we had started from, back to the carpark. A pleasant grassy path with our initial track several hours earlier easily seen on the hill across the valley.

Sally B