Tasmanian walks seem to have some interesting estimates for completion time, they basically state their times are for moderately fit peeps doing the walk without breaks, I thought for Mount Ossa i would have a crack at this see if I was indeed moderately fit and could achieve their published time.

Now, its 2.6km each way from the Pelion gap platform with a 482m ascent, seems pretty reasonable right, they advertise that its a 3-4 hour return trip which gives some clues that its not just a walk in the park, scramble time.

I pretty well fanged it up there as fast as i could and only stopped for a couple of photos, its actually pretty tough in some spots, for me anyway, these were where the gradient is like just going up a long continuous flight of stairs, I found this harder than say the rock scrambling where i think my long legs help 🙂 Gerry’s hot tip for rock scrambling, look for the big flat ones, seven big steps on a large flat rock is much easier than 20 little steps over scree rocks 🙂

So i got up to the top in about 1 hour and 40 minutes. I spent a good 20-30 minutes up the top taking pictures, noting that the rock negotiations up the top a bit more hair raising, big boulders with 3m+ drops, plenty of crevices to fall into and get lost. There was also a tiny patch of snow up there too 🙂

The photos are mostly on the trip back down, probably should have taken more on the way up since the light was nicer then. The trip down was pretty easy, long legs and a hiking pole made it pretty speedy, i got back and clocked in about the 3hours and 30min mark, which is in the middle of their recommended time. I think going a bit slower on the way up would have been more enjoyable in hindsight…

The pano shots from the top of this hill are pretty awesome, you can see for absolutely miles and see the various paths and tracks including the overland track from over at Windemere. Its the tallest hill in Tassie at 1617m but lets be honest its pretty small when compared to the mainland and moreso when compared to Norway 🙂 (my mountain benchmark).

The little Tarn you can see on the top is super cool – I saw a picture in the DuCane hut with Paddy Harnett which shows the exact same pond of water, pretty well unchanged since 1921.

There is also this super cool spot on the way up called the Japanese Garden, which it really is like a manicured japanese garden with stone paths and perfect little moss lawns and flower bundles.. would look epic with a dusting of snow.

Here are my highlights from the Mount Ossa scramble.