Lady Lake 7th-8th Feb 2020 - Camping

Our very first camping trip for women and girls only - by special request!
As a backpacking and camping hike, this trip includes a steep 2 hour climb up Higgs Track  to Lady Lake (well known for its comfortable hut). The plan is to meet Friday afternoon at 4 pm (allowing for work commitments etc), and to head up in the early evening, arriving at the hut with daylight to spare for a late hikers hot pot dinner (be ready to  make a few servings of your faviourite campers meal to share hikers buffet style!).  After a relaxing night, we can explore the local area, with its alpine vegetation before returning home in time for lunch.

Walk Details
The climb from the car park to Lady Lake rises 500 metres over about 2 km on a well-formed but steep track. This walk is rated "medium" and is suitable for walkers, including older children, who have had some experience with steep and rocky tracks as well as off-track alpine walking. Because of the exposed alpine conditions, walkers must be fully prepared for poor weather, and being a camping trip, you will need to carry a lightweight tent, food, sleeping bag and other equipment as advised by leader. Carrying a heavy pack into the wilderness requires a good level of fitness and appropriate equipment. Your walk leader will need to be confident in your experience before allowing you to join this walk.

Meeting Times and Places:
If interested in going on this walk, please phone your walk leader, Miranda Gracie on 0458 175 703  by Wed. 6th Februaryto book in. The departure time is 4pm from the Door of Hope Church car park, Launceston. Suggested meeting places if coming from elsewhere are at the west Deloraine roundbout on the verge of the B12 towards Mole Creek at 4:30 pm.

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: From Launceston, proceed along the Bass Highway to Deloraine (about 51 km). Follow the off-ramp into west Deloraine to the roundabout at the start of the Mole Creek Rd. Turn into Mole Creek Rd. and go about 8 km before turning left into Dairy Plains Rd. Go all the way through Dairy Plains Rd. (several right hand turns and 2 junctions where you need to follow the signs). When you arrive at the T junction with Western Creek Rd, turn right and 800m further on, turn left up Westrope Rd. Go more or less straight for 4 km south, to reach the junction of Dale Brook Rd. which turns off to the right. The car park for the walk is about 500 metres from Westrope Rd. Westrope Rd. is all gravel, and somewhat degraded in parts, but should be accessible for 2WD vehicles with reasonable clearance.

 Warnings:
  The following codes [from our 2020 walks calendar] apply:
    M   Marshy or muddy sections – be prepared to walk with wet feet.
    S    Steep incline for a significant amount of day 1
    E     Exposed alpine conditions ; can be dangerous in poor weather if not adequately equipped.
Be prepared! Walkers are advised to wear boots due to uneven surfaces. Gaiters recommended due to off-track walking. You should always carry wet weather gear as well as warm clothing in case of sudden weather changes.
For equipment guidelines, see our Safety and Equipment page.

 Map details:
Western Creek/Higgs Track area: 1:100000 map is Mersey (Tasmap 8114) and 1:25000 map for upper area is Lake Mackenzie (TasMap 4438).
Map reference:
Short ref. n/a
Zone      Easting        Northing    Latitude      Longitude
n/a

There are no peakbagger points for the area covered by this walk. 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.
For GPX (.gpx) and Google Earth (.kml) versions 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. 

 Boots’n’All activities are open to all, but intending walkers are asked to