Hello all,
You are invited to attend the Boots N' All
walk on Sat. 7th February which takes us west from Pencil Pine (Cradle Mountain
Lodge) to follow an old mining road across a beautiful open alpine area to the
remote Back Peak, offering spectacular wilderness views towards the
Cradle Mountain area from a less familiar perspective. Back Peak is about
halfway between Boots n' All's recent walk to Mt. Beecroft, and Hounslow Heath
above Waldheim. The long range forecast for Saturday is for a sunny 22 degrees,
which is promising!
This walk is rated "medium-hard" due to the extended distance and is
suitable for strong walkers who are experienced at following basic alpine
tracks, steep in a few places and somewhat uneven underfoot. One section covers
about a km of buttongrass where the track has
essentially disappeared. Walkers need to be able to keep going for sustained
distances (approx. 18 km for the round trip) and to keep up with the party.
Total gain of altitude is about 350 metres from start to summit. Because of the
exposed alpine conditions, walkers must be fully prepared for poor weather, even
in summer. Please see the warnings below.
Meeting Times and Places:
If you are interested in going on this walk, please phone me, Basil Tkaczuk
on 6331 1155 or 0438 664402 to book in (or reply to this email by
Thurs. evening) The departure time is 7:00 am from the Door of Hope
Church car park, Launceston. Suggested meeting places if coming from elsewhere
could be Sheffield at Claude Rd. turnoff at 7:50 am or Moina at 8:20 am.
Other meeting places by arrangement with leader. If you would like to arrange to meet the group at these places or
elsewhere, please arrange with the leader, and please be at any meeting place 5
minutes ahead of the listed time.
The leader should always be notified of any other people you intend to bring
along, and you should always contact the walk leader if intending to participate
in a particular Boots N' All walk.
To access this area from northern Tasmania: Roads to Cradle Mt. are well signposted, and the area
can be accessed from several directions. From Sheffield, go south along Claude
Rd through Gowrie Park and westward down into the Forth Valley (now Cethana
Rd.), continuing up the other side to Moina. Turn south into Cradle Mt. Rd.
After approx. 20 km, you will reach the Cradle Mt. turnoff. Turn left (still
called Cradle Mt. Rd.) and approx. 4 km south, you will arrive at the Pencil
Pine area. We will need to park in the public car park at old visitor centre,
left of road just across the bridge and just before the boom gate.
Warnings:
The following codes [from
our 2015 walks calendar] apply:
D Drive distance requires early departure
S Steep incline for at least part of the
way
L A long day’s walk – in excess of 3 hours
each way
M Marshy or muddy sections – be prepared
to walk with wet feet.
E Exposed alpine conditions
; can be dangerous in poor weather if not adequately equipped;
see www.sutas.org.au/bush-walking/bush-walking
for some guidelines.
If you are unsure of equipment requirements, Visit the Boots N' All
section of the sutas.org.au website per link below and read "Clothing
suggestions for exposed conditions"
Map details:
Back Peak (alt. 1140m): 1:100000 map is Sophia (Tasmap
8014) and 1:25000 map is Pencil Pine (Tasmap 4039)
Map references:
Short ref. 048916
Zone Easting
Northing Latitude Longitude
55G 4 05 020 53 91 740
-41.62041 145.85990
For peakbaggers, Back Peak is worth 1 point. For
listing of peakbagger points, see the Hobart Walking
Club Peakbagger's Guide (2000 revision) which can be
found and downloaded (as an Excel spreadsheet) from http://tastracks.webs.com/peakbaggers.htm
The same web page contains several other listings of
Tasmanian peaks.
GPX version of the track: Click here to
download. Google Earth version of the track: Click here to
download.
Right-click on the file and “save target as” to a location of your choice.
(Suggest you click the “Last modified” at top to sort by date to get the most
recent at top to find the file for the next walk).
When you have downloaded the
track file, double-clicking on the Google Earth (kml)
track should open Google Earth and zoom in to the location if you have Google
Earth installed on your computer. The .gpx version of
the track should import into mapping software or devices that support gpx tracks and waypoints.
GPS Discussions See http://bootsnall.sutas.org.au/GPS_discussions.htm
for discussion about the respective merits of hand-held GPS devices and
smartphones with GPS built in, as well as information about how to use a Garmin
Etrex10 GPS.
File Repository Boots N' All now has its own
file repository on the sutas website. See http://bootsnall.sutas.org.au At the moment, this is only a file repository,
and not a proper website, but any of the .gpx and .kml files from recent walks can be downloaded from there.
These can be found in folders called GPXfiles and GoogleEarth. Eventually, more tracks will be uploaded
there, and hopefully some more detailed walks descriptions for possible future
walks.
Facebook users (and others): www.facebook.com/SUTasBootsnall
Know
someone who is interested in bushwalking but not receiving our email updates?
Please forward this email to them, and invite them to email basiltk@hotmail.com to add their details
to our distribution list.
blessings,
Basil Tkaczuk
Boots N' All -
An activity of Scripture Union Tasmania ...Tasmanian wilderness hiking with a
difference!
Interested in supporting Scripture Union? See details on the
website. If you would like to receive the weekly prayer notes sent out by SU
Tasmania's office, you can fill in a request asking for this using the on-line
form at www.sutas.org.au/contact-us/contacts/scripture-union-tasmania-2
You could email me if you would like to participate in
and be reminded of our monthly Scripture Union prayer breakfasts in and around
Launceston