Western Arthur Range Traverse - Tips when planning

It's good coffee. Let's get into it. Hi everyone, welcome back to the channel. My name is Mauzer and on this channel I talk about hiking, travel and the gear I use along the way. I also occasionally take you on some of my adventures. I've been hiking in Tasmania, Australia for over 25 years and I've completed some of the state's most challenging hikes, both with my friends and as a hiking guide. Where I worked as a guide for a few years on Tasmania's overland track. I've just returned from a nine-day traverse, my second full traverse of the Western Arthur Range in southwest Tasmania. I thought it'd be good to share a few thoughts on what you should be considering before tackling this walk, which is one of Australia's hardest walks. Firstly, a bit of general information. Western Arthur Range is located in Southwest National Park, near Lake Padda, in southwest Tasmania. Contains 21 peaks, over a thousand meters in elevation. Tasmanian Parks and Wildlife Service on their website say, the Western Arthur Range Traverse is a highly advanced, multi-day grade five wilderness track and is considered to be one of the most challenging multi-day walks in Australia. It's normally accessed via the Port Davey and Mackay's tracks and the Huon Campground at Scots Peak Dam. This is about a four-hour drive from Launceston in the north or about two and a half hours from Hobart in the south of Tasmania. There are other access points, but generally as a rule, this is the recommended access route. People, including myself and my friends, will often combine a Western Arthur's Traverse with an Eastern Arthur's Traverse. That wasn't possible for a couple of years there due to some bushfires. It is now, but it is a massive undertaking and we'll just be concentrated today on the Western Arthur's Traverse. Public transport can be a bit of a challenge to get here, but there are a few operators who take people down to Huon Campground where the walk starts at Scots Peak Dam. There is also a very active Facebook group for Western Arthur's and Eastern Arthur's Traverse and many people on there are often looking for or offering rides to and from the start of the track. The area is managed by Tasmanian Parks and Wildlife Service. They recently instituted a registration system. They prefer it if you would register to do the walk. That is available on their website and it's up to six months in advance you can book for your group to do the walk. There's no fee to book the walk. The only fee there is you do need a Parks Pass to do the walk, so you need to purchase that from the Parks and Wildlife website before you go. So you can book up to six months in advance and as long as you're well organised and you're planning well in advance, I've never found it to be an issue when registering for walks like this one. Most people allow five, seven days to do the Traverse from Alpha Moraine to Kappa Moraine, the most popular route in the Western Arthur Range. If you are going to do the full Traverse like we've just done, you need to allow a couple of extra days walking. The Traverse from Alpha Moraine to Kappa Moraine, including walking in and out from Scots Peak Dam, is around 60 to 70 kilometres. It's about another 20 kilometres further if you do the full Traverse like we've just done. If you're interested in a bit of hiking history of the Western Arthur Range, the first full recorded Traverse of the Western Arthur Range was completed by a party from the Hobart Walking Club in December 1960. Three guys, Pat Conahan, John Elliott and Barry Higgins, completed the first Traverse. While a lot of the peaks have been climbed along the range from the Arthur Plains previously, these guys managed to go out there in 1960 and managed to carve a route through the notorious Beggary Bumps to connect the range up. And these guys did that in 1960, which when you go through it now is a pretty incredible feat back then. Originally, the range has had a numerical and alphabetical system to name the peaks and the lakes. But in around 1965, another member of the Hobart Walking Club, a fellow by the name of Tim Christie, put forward the suggestion to rename all the peaks and lakes after the names of the planets, their moons and constellations in the galaxy. This proposal was accepted and resulted in the names that we see on the peaks today. Now, down to the nitty gritty. You're probably here because you're considering walking the range, you're considering heading out there and you're wondering, is it for me or should I be doing it? So hopefully I can help answer a couple of those questions today. I've spent a lot of time down in southwest Tasmania, particularly around the Western Arthur Range and Eastern Arthur Range. I have made multiple trips over the last 25 years down there. If you're considering it, there's a lot you need to think about, especially if you're coming from outside Tasmania. If you haven't done this type of walking before, there are a lot of things you should think about before even planning to head down and do this walk. Here are my five main considerations that I'll be thinking about before contemplating heading into the Western Arthur Range. Number one, this place is not for the faint of heart. There are plenty of exposed, rocky, steep, scrambly sections where you're going to have to be on all fours, scrambling up and down rocky cliffs, rocky outcrops. Plenty of exposed sections requiring you to scramble up and down very steep, rocky and often slippery sections. In wet conditions, which is often, this will be even harder. Pretty crazy kind of drop off there. You don't have to have specific rock climbing experience, but a good level of rock scrambling experience, that's where you're on all fours, clambering up a slanted rock, that will help you no end. While not all people need to take a rope, it is suggested on every packing list you'll see just about, it recommends you take a rope on the Western Arthur Range. I tend to agree with that. And you're not using it for belaying or for helping people climb. You're using it for pack hauling in the event that you get to a steep, rocky section and it doesn't look that good to climb down with a full pack on. You will want to drop the pack down with the pack hauling rope, we call it. So yeah, not essential, but I recommend taking a rope. That is sort of part of the kit that you need to take. Some people will argue that you don't need a rope if you've got a high level of experience, but just from past trips, even on those wet rainy days, if you've chosen to go along the range, continue on to the next campsite, you may find it helpful on a slippery section where you just don't want to risk slipping with a full pack on and it's easier to get down. So it's not for the faint of heart and if you've never done any walking, then you should not be starting with this walk. It is not a place to go if you don't have any experience at all. Absolutely no way you should be going there. This is a walk that tests even the most seasoned hiking veteran. On those wet rainy days, it really challenges you. Weather, believe it or not, is worse than it was last time we were here. So there we go. It's an exercise in problem solving a lot of these sorts of trips. If you're after a trip that covers lots of distance and isn't too up and down, then definitely don't go on this walk because it is up and down the whole way through. Two, be prepared for the weather. We are in southwest Tasmania, snow, high winds, heavy rain, they're all possible even in the peak of summer. As I've said before on other videos, when I did this trip a few years ago, middle of summer, it snowed pretty much the entire way. And I have never had a trip to this region where I haven't had heavy rain for one or two days. Now, even on this trip, we had beautiful sunshine, hot weather. We even had that heavy rain which would come and clear and it can often last an hour or two or the whole day, but it can happen at any time. It rains over 250 days a year down in this area. You're in the middle of the roaring 40s. This weather sweeps across the Southern Ocean, halfway around the globe and hits Tasmania and these mountains are smack bang first thing that it hits as it hits Tasmania. So expect crazy weather while you're there. It doesn't matter what time of year, but you've got to expect it and you've got to be prepared for the weather. Now with the rain comes the mud. And even in the rain itself, there are muddy sections, but the plains from which you access the range, they are renowned for being quagmires that suck up the water and create big muddy pools. And even on the driest of summers, even last week when we were heading out, where most of the areas are dry, there are some really foggy, muddy sections. If you think you're going to go through this and stay clean, forget about that because you're going to be planning through this mud. Go straight through the middle. You're going to expect mud both on your first day and on your last. And even while you're on the range, going up and down these rocky gullies and through bits of forest, you're going to find little muddy patches. That's just part of walking in southwest Tasmania. The weather is one of the reasons you need to allow in your itinerary for a couple of extra days where you might be tent bound. We have done several trips where we have been tent bound for days and you just got to be prepared to sit it out sometimes and look for that window of opportunity to move on. We had a 13 day trip a few years ago where we were tent bound for four days out of that 13. It's a fact of life in southwest Tasmania and in the Western Arthur Range on those really heavy weather days, you don't want to be trying to traverse some of those exposed sections. Phone reception is extremely limited so don't rely on your phone for weather forecasts. Get weather forecast before you go and you're going to have to do a lot of judging of the weather while you're out there. Some devices such as the Garmin InReach Explorer, which I take, offers the feature of requesting a weather forecast while you're out there. So that can be a helpful thing to have while you're out there but sort of playing it by ear and getting to know the weather conditions and judging them as you're on the track. Number three, you should know how to navigate if you're out here. Don't rely on your phones, don't rely on your InReaches, don't rely on GPS's. Batteries go flat, things get wet. You need to take a hard copy map, you need to take a compass and you need to know where you are on that hard copy map at all times. You need to know where you are and how to locate yourself. There's plenty of courses you can do. I'll try and find some suggestions and leave them below on how to navigate. If you don't know, I wouldn't be rushing straight out. There are lots of false leads, even though you're on a form track the whole trip, there are lots of false leads where people have gone before and taken the wrong route. So you've really got to be, it becomes an innate ability down here to sort of know when you're on the track and when you're not. Now, while you are following a track the entire trip, they can sometimes be a bit faint, they can get overgrown with a bit of scrub and that is a good reason to be aware at all times of where you are on the map. There are false leads and they'll look like the track, but they're not the track. The track went that way and you just went that way. You've got to be aware of when something doesn't feel right. Am I still on the track? And just stop and ask yourself the question, is this the right way? Be aware of that at all times because there's plenty of false leads and plenty of stories of people who have followed the wrong route too far and then they've had to go all the way back or they've got lost. There's millions of stories. Just be aware of your surroundings and the route that you've got to be taking. Number four, be aware that you're probably going to have to carry a day's water at a time. While this place gets plenty of rain, there can be situations, especially on the day through to Highmoor where water can be very limited on the track. You can go all day without seeing any water on the track between one campsite to the next. We found this on our most recent trip a couple of weeks ago where we were carrying enough water each day for the day. It's certainly a good idea before you go to get an idea of the water situation on the track, particularly at a campsite like Highmoor. There is the active Facebook group where you can ask people who've been through in the last week, what's the water situation like on the range? You can call Parks and Wildlife at Mountfield Visitor Centre. They can give you an idea as well. And while most camps are beside lakes and reliable creeks and water sources, Highmoor in particular can run dry. So you may be in a situation where you need to carry two full days water when Highmoor is without water. Number five, make sure you take the right gear. Have a look, there's plenty of gear lists online. I did a gear video. Some of that stuff wasn't essential but I've covered all the essentials in it. And I'll also leave a link below to my packing list for this most recent trip. You need the right gear. This includes a tent, the right clothing, the right wet weather gear, the right type of pack and the right footwear. You also need to take enough food. Allow for a couple of extra days in your itinerary. I can't stress that enough. If you're tent bound for a day, you're gonna need an extra day's food. I normally carry about two days extra food. Not a massive amount of food, a couple of meals and enough to get me through if I had to for a couple of extra days. Now I asked Walter who I've done the range with twice. His opinions, he agreed with pretty much the ones I have put out there. One thing he did say, can you climb a boulder with a pack on? Do this a few hundred times and you will start to get an idea of what the big days are like. That's from Walter. If you've got any tips or suggestions or good websites, leave them in the comments below for everyone. That is a very brief overview of what I think you should be just starting to think about if you're contemplating heading into the Western Arthur Range. It's not an easy walk. It is tough. It is one of the toughest in Australia, if not the toughest. It's also very beautiful. I love the place, but I've been doing this for a long time and you need to be prepared. I've seen plenty of people on tracks all over Tasmania who simply weren't prepared when they headed out and they're having second thoughts. You don't want to be in that situation. You want to be well prepared, know what you're in for and take your time. Take your time to do the walk. Don't try and rush it. If you're not sure if you should be doing the whole range, one option is to go into Lake Oberon and then back out. Walk into Lake Cygnus, camp there for a few days, do a day walk to Lake Oberon, walk back out, get a taste for the range. But if you get to Lake Oberon and you have found this walk a real challenge to this point, then don't go any further. Turn around, go back, come back another day. Because the two days after Lake Oberon are when things get pretty serious. I hope you enjoyed the video. Hope to see you back again. Please like and subscribe. That would really help. And stay tuned for the video of the Western Arthur Traverse, of our trip out. They're coming right up very soon. I'm excited to be working on them right now. Bring back some great memories of this fantastic walk. In the meantime, check out this video just to whet your appetite for what's coming next. But until next time, I've got to go get the kids from school.