Australian Alps Walking Track - Mt Square Top to Mt Buggery

Day: 08
Date: Wednesday, 24 April 2019
Start: Atop Mt Square Top
Finish:  0.4 km south of Mt Buggery
Daily Kilometres:  21.5 AAWT
Total AAWT Kilometres:  168.8
Weather:  Overcast at first, then foggy with occasional rain.
Accommodation:  Tent
Nutrition:
  Breakfast:  Muesli
  Lunch:  Trail Mix
  Dinner:  Rehydrated Meal and Soup
Aches:  Julie has a sore ankle and both very tired.
Highlight:  Finding water at Chesters Yards and being able to drink our fill.
Lowlight:  Crossing the spectacular Cross-Cut Saw ridge and not being able to see a thing  because of thick fog.
Pictures: Click here
Map and Position: Click here for Google Map
Journal:

The day started well with us hitting the trail at 6:40am walking towards a brilliant red sunrise and able to take in spectacular views from Mt Square Top and then Mt Clear (1695m) which we climbed shortly afterwards.  The descent from Mt Clear was treacherously steep on loose stone and I wouldn't have liked to be hiking in the other direction.  After the descent, the trail mellowed and we enjoyed a few kilometres of relatively easy walking following an old firetrail meandering through snow gum forests.

Around 9am we reached Chesters Yards.  Just packing up and ready to begin hiking was a Russian who is also doing the AAWT.  We had been told yesterday that he was on the trail ahead of us by a couple of hunters we encountered.  We exchanged a few pleasantries and he headed off while we had breakfast and drank our fill from the nearby stream after a thirsty couple of days.  As we began hiking again, the fog rolled in and stayed with us for the rest of the day.  It was the only encouragement we needed to avoid climbing King Billy and Mt Magdala and we took the available trail detours around those mountains.

It began to rain as we restocked water from a stream a few hundred metres steeply down hill from the trail at the Mt Magdala campsite, and again met our Russian who obviously didn't take the detours.  He looked very wet and laughed when I said "G'day" and replied "Really?"  The rain made what was now an overgrown trail very wet as we were constantly forcing our way through sopping wet vegetation.  Not very pleasant.

The climb to the bare summit of Mt Howitt (1738m) in the fog was reminiscent of a scene from the Scottish moors and we didn't linger long at the summit.  From there we tackled the famed Cross-Cut Saw ridge and entered the Razor-Viking Wilderness where no trails are marked.  The Cross-Cut Saw is a spectacular traverse in fine weather, but today we saw none of it.  We had thick fog the whole way as we negotiated the gnarly technical track with precipitous falls to either side and could only imagine the vistas we were missing.  We each had a few slips and falls on the wet trails and rocks, and lost the trail a couple of times as well.  It was stressful hiking and we began looking for somewhere to camp around 5pm, but it took until 5:45 and darkness to find somewhere, literally on the trail again.  There were a few spots of rain as we set up camp and we were very relieved to just get everything inside the tent, including ourselves, before it began raining hard.  We were so happy we hadn't risked continuing on to look for a better spot at Mt Buggery, as originally intended.