Ramshead Range, Australia

Where ya from, mate?”
“Canberra”.

“Oh”.

“Yeah, but it’s really close to the beach. And to the mountains…”.

Sound familiar? It will if you are from Canberra, or if you’ve met someone who is.

It’s always been a bit hopeful – describing your town’s upsides in terms of its distance from fun things to do. But Canberra is beautifully located. It’s a few hours to some stunning, remote beaches. And, beginning at the Orroral Valley, just south of Canberra in the Namadgi National Park, are the northern extremes of the Snowy Mountains. In 2011, I completed a long-held dream to find the wreckage of the Southern Cloud, not too far from Mt Jagungal which I reached with Yon in 2012. And in March 2011, I met another long-held promise to take Mum camping on the Main Range. We hiked out one foggy morning from Charlotte Pass, the end of the road from Jindabyne.

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Mt Asahi

Southern Cloud

Mt Kinabalu

With Dad in tow, we followed the old road down to the Snowy River, only a few kilometers from its source. It’s beautiful around there, and when Dad returned to the car to drive back to Jindabyne then stay overnight at Thredbo, we pushed along an old trail alongside the Snowy towards the Ramshead Range. The sun poked through the clouds, the breeze rustled the grass, and the Main Range shone in all its beauty.

As the sun headed west, we reached the metal walkway that runs from Thredbo to Rawsons Pass, from where many Australians start their final “assault” of Kosciuszko’s gentle summit (2,228 m asl). We followed this walkway for a few hundred meters uphill, beneath the black and imposing jagged ridge protecting the Ramshead plateau. Breaking off the path, like hobbits furtively crossing the Old Road in Middle Earth, we struck up the grassy slope, aiming for the rocks above. Mum, well into her 60s, plugged away like a mountain goat and we were soon both back in the sunshine, looking towards the Ramshead Range. We pitched our tent here and settled in to a dinner based on brie, crackers, and a mini bottle of champagne I’d stashed in my backpack. The sun set, the temperature plummeted, and we watched the bright stars from the warmth of our sleeping bags.

Overnight, the wind picked up, the rain dumped down, and by morning, the fog had condensed our world to a tiny island in a sea of grey. Visibility was less than 30 meters.

Much to Mum’s amusement, I fired up my whisperlite stove and brewed her some coffee. Somewhere in her pack, she’d stashed a lightweight but durable French press and a container of gourmet coffee. A fine breakfast indeed.

I wanted to navigate back to Thredbo without GPS. I knew Mum was a clever mountain goat, so I gave her a quick instruction on the use of a compass. In a whiteout, distances are hard to judge and direction is easy to lose. Around Ramshead, where it is pretty flat, everything starts to look the same extremely quickly, so it is vital to make sure you know which way you are going. We knew fairly accurately where we were camped, so we decided to walk towards Ramshead for a while, then take a 90 degree left turn and head back down to Thredbo. The plan was to intersect the path to Dead Horse Gap somewhere above the Crackenback Top Station, then follow it downhill to where Dad would collect us.

We went well. Mum would select a prominent rock on our direct bearing, and we’d walk towards it. The rocks looked about 30 meters away, but by a disturbing trick of the fog, within a few steps, the distance suddenly seemed (and actually was) much less. When we reached the rock, we’d check the bearing and head off towards whatever revealed itself from that point. Within three minutes, it was impossible to see where we had camped.

Disorientation quickly set in. We discussed how important it was to place complete trust in the compass. My mind told me that the compass was off. I could have sworn it was veering us right, and off course, with each new 30 meter leg. This was a very powerful sensation and part of my mind wondered whether the compass might be faulty. The rest of my brain shouted that idea down, and we stuck to the needle. In a while, we thought we’d travelled about a kilometer, and it was time to select our bearing towards Thredbo.

We plodded along, crossed a few small streams, and watched as the fog swirled around us, sometimes dissipating long enough for the black rocky pyramids of the Ramshead area to loom menacingly out above, only to disappear as quickly as they’d come. The ground started downhill, and we were still reasonably sure we knew where we were. As an experiment, and to make sure I didn’t lead Mum to a premature death of hypothermia, I pulled out my GPS for a position check. Messing around with the buttons, I didn’t notice the fog dissolve. I said, “Oh, we are about 500 metres from Crackenback”, feeling quite smug at our effort. Mum said, “I know, I can see it over there”. Foiled!

It was a long, wet, but pretty slog downhill towards Dead Horse Gap, through a beautiful forest of eucalypts with lush alpine grass growing amongst the trunks. Everything was bathed in a glorious aroma of snowgums. And Dad was there, waiting patiently, and hopefully not too surprised that we actually made it back. Dead reckoning with Mum in a whiteout at the Ramsheads: tick.