11 December 2012 Mystery Walk - Snowy Flat Creek

400m up Snowy Flat Creek

Map: Corin Dam

Getting There

This walk was organised and led by me as an irregular CBC Tuesday Short-notice walk:

Tuesday 11 December - Mystery Walk - L/R,W. How much do you trust me? A mystery walk with a unique twist. Involves rock hopping up a fern-lined creek and a walk home. Around 14km and 850m climb. Fit and experienced walkers only. Map: That would give the location away. Limit: Strictly 6. Leader: John Evans - john@johnevans.id.au, 0417 436 877. Transport: ~$8 per person.

Further Information

6 of us met at 6am and drove to Corin Dam.

Walk - Track Notes

The level of Corin Dam is down, exposing a strip of the bank (flood mitigation is the reason - they don't want the new Cotter Dam washed away again).

Our track began at the point where Snowy Flat Creek flows into Corin Dam. Within a few hundred metres, there are beautiful tree ferns in an almost temperate rain forest environment. I reckon that this is one of Canberra's best kept bush secrets, and one would not expect to see this type of stuff in the Namadgi.

At one creek junction I took the wrong creek (it is harder to navigate up a creek system than down), so we did a little contour bush bash through very dense regrowth, over the crest and back onto the main Snowy Flat Creek. Slow going from 1100m to 1200m, pushing high up above the creek as the gradient, falls and boulders were not navigable. In other places, we were able to either rock hop or stay quite close to the creek.

The scrub is certainly a lot thicker that last time (21 Apr 09) and I'm not as good a navigator as Max, so quite a slow trip. One poked eye and one banged head.

The unrelentingly steep climb eased at around the 1450m contour and I had better luck navigating through the top two junctions.

Cut the corner on the final approach to lunch. The thick pea regrowth was bad; the creek line may have been worse.

Finally made it to the slab cascades just before midday. We had a long lunch. Santa visited.

A trip in to these cascades from the top either from Corin Dam (via Stockyard Spur) or from Mt Ginini car park (after the Mt Franklin Rd is reopened) would make an excellent Wednesday walk, or an easier Saturday walk.

Away again, up over the lip and onto the edge of Snowy Flats. An uneventful and gentle climb up to meet the Stockyard Spur track, along it and down the new freeway to Corin Dam. The only thing I could think to do was to count the number of steps - there are 434 steps made with dressed timber and stone, plus several tens more made with local timber.

Peter and Linda had lovely gifts of home dehydrated fruits for us.

Thanks Peter C and Linda G, Eric G, Max S and Ian W. I hope you enjoyed the mystery walk with a twist, which was sort of a thank you for your company, friendship and Tuesday walk leading during 2012. 2013 will be bigger and better!

Distance: 13.4km Climb: 800m. Time: 7.40am - 2.55pm (7hrs 15mins), with 65mins of breaks.
Grading: L/R,W; H(13)