Pushing the Pace

Written by Mont Ambassador Geoff Murray

Over the years I have walked Tasmania’s iconic Overland Track four times, the last two times with my wife in 2016 and 2018. 

An idea germinated a couple of weeks ago to walk the track in winter, something I hadn’t done before.

Sorting through my gear I decided light weight was a factor so I trimmed my camera gear down to a body and one lens and a relatively lightweight tripod giving a total weight of 2.1 kgs.

Next was the sleeping bag. It was winter so my usual choice for this time of year in Tasmania is theMont Helium 680, a superbly luxurious -12°C bag. A Mont Moondance 1 FN tentrounded out the main items. Clothing included the brilliant Helios down jacket matched with the versatile Flashpoint jacket underneath. My outer shell was the Mont Mountain Pro jacketand Supersonic pants.

The forecast for the first 4 days was ridiculously good for this time of year and I started under clear skies with a light frost and very little snow in view on the surrounding mountains.

The end of the first day saw me camped near an alpine lake with superb views from my tent door.

Conditions for the whole trip were more akin to a summer walk than winter with no rain, no snow and minimum temperatures not below -2°C.

I camped again on the second night with another light frost. The only hut that I used during the walk was on the third night at Burt Nichols Hut so I would be able to get an early start, walking the first hour or so on headlamp.

The new huts in the park are incredibly comfortable, with gas heating and electric lighting. This is something I do struggle with a little as I feel that they are just a bit too comfortable. I first walked the track in 1982 and the huts were more like small rustic barns, very authentic and sometimes cosy but not at all luxurious.

One of the conundrums of a wilderness photographer is that good weather, apart from at sunrise and sunset, creates lousy light for photographs. As a result, I captured only 5 decent images on the whole trip. The camera was hardly used during the middle part of the day.

Realising that this wasn’t going to be a photographic trip and having already walked the track several times an idea grew in my mind that perhaps this would be a good opportunity to give my body a bit of a test after recovering from a major rotator cuff operation five months prior.

The end result was that I walked 92kms in 4 days (the ferry on Lake St Clair was offline for maintenance so I had to walk the track down the side of Lake St Clair).

At just shy of 71 years of age I was genuinely pleased with this result, I haven’t walked this well for quite some time and it just goes to show that with a bit of exercise and application (and good luck) age isn’t always a massive barrier to enjoying life.

Now my wife wants a repeat visit.....:)