The Spires

Welcoming 2021 with 12 days alone in the Franklin–Gordon Wild Rivers, Tasmania.

December 2020 – January 2021

Everything is toast across the Vale of Rasselas. On the trail to Lake Rhona, teasing wind and rain insufficent to motivate a shell. Camped behind the quartzite sands as the front rolls in.

A snow storm on Great Dome. Two years on from the fire, yellow lichen cobwebs over the burn line dissecting the crest of the ridge—to the east, desolation. Crooked Lake is a crematorium sprouting flowers. Dead trunks glisten as charcoal snakeskin. Lakes Wugata and Mulana, a moonscape. My feet break the thin sharp crust of scorched earth.

Slowly over the rain-slick Staircase Rocks to pitch in a dead pineapple grass depression. The track ends here. I scout the lead from Bonds Craig for the morning ahead.

Descending in early drizzle. The mist lifts briefly, Centre Star highlighted to the south, a wet green canopy rising ahead. Underneath it’s dense and foul. The sky clears as I eject from the ridge two bruising hours later.

I develop a complicated relationship with buttongrass. Beyond the initial North Star ridges the clumps develop into waist-high behemoths, packed in fat and eager to roll a lazy ankle. Occasionally I encounter an expired tussock, a collapsed pile of soggy darkness—I delight in trampling its soft corpse. Yet when forcing through scrub, I seek and praise and pray for buttongrass relief.

A wombat bounding briskly over the plain with enviable surety. Through a small bog to hit the crowded banks of Gell River, I negotiate a passage up high through the gap and stumble into Lake Curly on weary legs. A huge day of walking.

I spend Wednesday on the white pebble beach—reading, paddling, snoozing.

Awkward scrub lines the neighbouring flanks of Perambulator Ridge. Up over the top and the bulk of The Spires emerges dead ahead, Conical and Shining mountains close by to my left, encircled by sheer majesty as I descend a calm north-westerly ridge to Reverend Creek.

At the creek the scrub is ridiculous again. I try splashing up a tributary instead. A stunning interlude, miniature cascades and mossy banks. I dwell and marvel as daylight and energy recede. Back into the scrub wrapping around my thighs, tripping my ankles, shin-smacking chest-jabbing cheek-spiking branch-crumbling dust in my eyes. I pitch up high on a slanted rock under Outer Spire and settle in for New Year’s Eve.

It’s a wonderful rock. I watch the last of the evening light expose Shining Mountain in tenebrist glory.

2021 arrives. I continue my approach from the east along an irregular crest and attain The Font. Flame Peak rises directly above, an ochre blaze of rippled rock. Apparently there’s a log book here—I can’t find it—it doesn’t matter. Everything is good.

Climbing into The Spires, content to scale the minarets and minor steeples. Crystal skies for the next five days. Views are endless in every direction—Diamond Peak, Frenchmans Cap, Wylds Craig, back to Bonds and Reeds, south to Federation…

A sweltering hike to Innes High Rocky begins as mist burns off the Denisons in the direction of yesterday. Six hours in the relentless heat of the plains and I hit the rim of the cirque immediately opposite the mountain, slower than expected.

I sit facing its immense cliff face, contemplate a seemingly gentle ramp curling toward the summit. A small conversation with the landscape. A curious, heightened sensation of being beyond civilisation. With some exhaustion setting in, I’m okay with turning around. Back at camp I scatter tadpoles, wading deep into the chill waters of The Font.

For the return circuit I bash down the obvious ridge rather than retrace my steps, crossing Reverend Creek once more to pick a reasonable line up the lower slopes of Shining. Ascending to the broad summit dome through thick buttongrass: straightforward, strenuous, slow.

There’s a generous tarn below the pinnacle. I make camp amid aromatic flowering heath. Overhead, a pair of wedge-tailed eagles soar, bank, gambol. Mt Curly rises to the east as a gleaming white whale. The frogs talk long into the evening.

The tangerine sun retires behind the Prince of Wales range, quinacridone and plum pastels rolling through the cerulean horizon, still skies of dark slate. The devastated shoreline of the Gordon reservoir obtains a silvery allure. A singular moment in time, a spike in my sparkline.

Conical Mountain is a sharp landscape of tiny spines and horny kigilyakh. Shubbery pruned to neat hedges by westerly gales. Sticking tight to the narrow ridge, a fun sketchy scramble back down to Perambulator Ridge. Cooling off in Lake Curly I’m seized with a desire for furniture and beer.

A swift return journey across Badger Flat, skittering cicadas, shy baby snakes. Feeling powerful until I hit the brutality guarding the bottom of the lead onto the Denisons, a slow motion battle back to the top. Minor bloodshed, dehydration, miso soup.

Calling time on the 12th day, a bright morning on the beach at Rhona, actual human company, a comparative stroll to Richea Creek.