Mount Solitary Hike.

I have wanted to do this hike for quite some years but it all never seemed to line up between back burning, land slides and closures and it has been recently closed for aerial pest control (and still landslide) but as luck would have it the eastern side access to Mount Solitary was opened again on the 1st November. So I gave it a crack, whilst walking from the eastern side is certainly not my preferred option, sometimes you just gotta take what you can get.

I think I really need to sum it up in a few words…and if you see the track profile it will give you a understanding on this…basically its a 22km walk which varies from f-ing hard downhill, to f-ing hard uphill walking and not much in between, couple this with one very fundamental ball tearer.. once you get to the top of this plateau its still not flat or a very easy walk, in fact its more up and down with shrub that seems to be out to catch you at every turn. To top that off I was cycling thru bush patches filled with cicadas which makes you feel your entering to some kind of torture chamber !

That said I think it is still a nice walk particularly during the cooler months, I think doing this in the middle of summer would be very hard and your water management would have to be spot on, there is very little to no collectable water on the top at the moment and any that saw I would not touch even with a barge pole. Water from the Kedumba river was fine (boiled of course) but carrying that extra weight up the 800m ascent is certainly felt 🙂

Given its just opened up again there was not many people other than several hikers camping at the Kedumba River and a stack of these crazies called trail runners 😉 Once I passed the river it was just me and Mount Solitary – truly a solitary moment :), after walking the entire length it was pretty clear there was no one else up there. There is so many camp spots up there, you can really pick your adventure here, you want be on the edge of the cliff or down in a gulley or in a light shrub bush this place has them all.

Hopefully they open the western side soon, indications are that this could happen by Christmas which would be awesome, makes the walk up on to the mountain a 12 or so km round trip with a much more respectable elevation gain, probably more pleasant as a overnight trip than from the eastern side, my calf muscles have still not forgiven me…

The views off to the south toward Lake Burragorang are pretty awesome, particularly at sunset the layers of valleys and hills covered in the blue galvanises why the are called the Blue Mountains.

A few images of course, gotta make hauling that camera and tripod worthwhile I say 🙂 ultralite kit might be worthwhile I think 🙂

“I think solitary confinement is a luxury,” said my friend, “don’t you?”

“You’re on your own there,”