With only two summits remaining to achieve Mountain Goat status, I planned for a family trip to Mt Hotham on the AFL long weekend at the end of September. My goal was to complete the Mountain Goat on Mt Feathertop, Victoria’s second highest peak, during the bonus period which was rapidly coming to an end. I knew there would still be plenty of snow cover and that the weather would have to be just right to attempt it. Thankfully, the bureau of meteorology delivered a superb long weekend.

The Hump

 

We left Melbourne on Friday morning (the AFL public holiday) and drove straight to Mt Buffalo. There wasn’t a lot of snow remaining there, so it was an easy drive to the start of The Hump walking track. I convinced the rest of the family that it would be good exercise to accompany me up to the summit. It is an easy walk with a well formed path leading past the impressive rock outcrop known as “The Cathedral” to the summit area.

 

 

 

Up the top, there was still a reasonable amount of snow which made it a bit harder to get to the actual summit. There was a moderate cool wind, so I found a reasonably sheltered spot near some large rocks.

I set up quickly and was on the air around 2:15pm. It took nearly 10 minutes for the first chaser to find me, but then I had a steady stream across 80m and 40m comfortably qualifying with 13 contacts.

 

 

 

By this time the family had become bored and headed back down, so I packed up rapidly and hurried back down to the car. We then headed on to Mt Hotham resort where the rest of the family would spend the weekend.

Mt Feathertop

I had previously activated Mt Feathertop in 2014 and been to the summit a couple of other times as well, but always in summer. Liking a challenge, I set myself a goal of climbing Mt Feathertop in the bonus season and it seemed fitting to make it the final activation to reach the Mountain Goat milestone.

 

I had hoped to make this during mid winter to see it fully snow covered, but the timing didn’t work out, however, as you will see it still had plenty of snow and still required some technical gear to get to the summit.

 

 

 

Like all alpine peaks, the weather and snow condition is always unpredictable, so I took snow shoes, 6 point crampons and an ice axe, two out of three proved useful.

There are several approach routes to Mt Feathertop. In summer, the easiest route is from the Great Alpine Road across the Razorback. However, in winter, this would have involved a 12km snow shoe. Instead I chose to climb up from Harrietville via the Bungalow Spur walking track (10.5km).

That way I would be hiking below the snow line for most of the distance. Of course the trade off is the vertical ascent – 1500m from Harrietville to the summit!

My wife drove me down to Harrietville around lunch time on Saturday and I set off with approx 23kg pack in warm and sunny conditions.

 

The Bungalow spur track is a well trodden path that was established early last century for horses to take guests up to the old Feathertop Bungalow. It was built in 1925 at a site about 1km down from Federation Hut and could sleep 32 guests. Interestingly, Mt Feathertop was promoted as an easy destination for intermediate skiers compared to Mt Hotham for the experts! The bungalow was destroyed in the 1939 Black Friday bushfires and was never re-built. There’s an excellent detailed history of the mountain here for those interested (the source of the photo below on the right).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The path is well graded and winds its way up to Federation Hut over 9km through Mountain Ash forest and then snow gums near the top. There are relatively few view points due to the forest, so it’s quite a long slog with a heavy pack. I first encountered snow just before the site of the Feathertop Bungalow and it became fairly continuous for the last 1km or so to Federation hut. Despite that I got to the hut without the need to put on snow shoes.

 

 

 

 

I made it to the hut in about 3:20 which was a solid pace and arrived just after 4:00pm. The weather remained sunny and there was almost no wind which made for a beautiful late afternoon around the hut.

 

 

 

I set up my tarp and hammock in the trees behind the hut, built a small snow kitchen and cooked dinner just before sunset.

 

 

 

 

 

There were probably a total of 20 people camped around the hut including a school cadet group. Once the sun had set, at least half of that number congregated in the warmth of the hut to cook and chat. There were a mixture of skiers and snow shoers, some with many years of experience on the mountain and I spent a good couple of hours chatting.

 

I climbed into my hammock about 8:30 and slept well. The temperature dropped to about -2 overnight, but with no wind, it was quite comfortable.

Rising with sunshine on the tarp, I breakfasted and packed what I needed for the activation into my pack. 

 

 

I donned snow shoes and headed for the summit. With the spring melt in full swing, the snow was primarily clinging to southern and eastern aspects and so once on the ridge line near Little Feathertop, I could remove my snow shoes and walk on bare ground.

 

 

 

However when I reached the last steep face up to the summit, it was fully snow covered and quite firm, so snow shoes were absolutely needed – not so much for flotation, but rather for grip in the packed snow.

The weather remained perfect with a clear blue sky and a light wind.

 

 

Cresting the summit, I kept well back from the large cornice which always forms on Mt Feathertop and has seen several deaths from collapses over the years.

 

 

 

 

 

I set up my antenna as usual anchoring it with snow pegs and making use of my ice axe to brace a ski pole to hold up the feed point. Despite the clear sky and light wind, it was quite cool on the summit and so I rugged up with an extra layer, balaclava and beanie to stay warm enough while activating.

 

 

 

 

 

I got on air around 9:30, half an hour before my alerted time. First in the log was Warren VK3BYD from nearby Wangaratta, followed quickly by Glenn VK3YY and Peter VK3PF. Allen VK3ARH called from the car on his way to VK3/VS-003 Mt Buangor and then again when he reached the summit for the only S2S contact for the day.

 

 

 

I worked a total of 15 contacts to complete the activation and finally make Mountain Goat.

 

 

 

 

The walk back to Federation hut was quicker, but I swapped to using crampons on the steep snow covered section as they have better grip going down hill than snow shoes. In hindsight, I probably could have left the snow shoes at home and used crampons only given that the snow was all well packed. Earlier in the season, snow shoes would probably have been needed as well.

 

 

I packed up the camp and then headed back down to Harrietville. In some ways, the trip down was almost harder than going up as the impact on my feet with a heavy pack going down hill made them very sore by the end. I was back in Harrietville by 2:45pm where my family met me for the drive back to Melbourne.

Mountain Goat

When I started SOTA, I knew it would take a long time to reach Mountain Goat with family and work commitments leaving little time to go out activating. I decided early on that my particular challenge would be to make Mountain Goat in the least number of summits. Mt Feathertop was my 90th activation with an average of 11.2 points per activation – doing a lot of summits in the bonus period certainly helps! This is currently (Oct 2018) the highest average per activation in the whole SOTA programme for those who have attained Goathood – a satisfying result.

It’s been a great journey and it has taken me to lots of summits I would otherwise never have visited. It has also given me a strong impetus to work on getting both my radio gear and camping gear as light as possible! It has seen me on the air on CW which I doubt I would have done without SOTA.

Thanks to all who’ve chased over the years, particularly Peter VK3PF who’s chased me 65 times, and Nev VK5WG, Gerard VK2IO and John ZL1BYZ who have all chased me more than 30 times. Without dedicated chasers, SOTA would be much harder.

My next goal will be to focus on unique summits irrespective of points value, and liking challenges, will probably try for some more remote ones. That way I can hopefully avoid this blog becoming repetitive!

Appendix – The stats and maps

For those planning this activation, here are the distances, times and elevations. I’m moderately fit, so adjust times up or down as you think appropriate.