Traverse of the gods (29 Sep 2018)
I’d been plumping to do this walk for most of winter but the weather conditions hadn’t come to the party. Finally on our last weekend living in Blackheath we got a reasonable forecast so off we went. We hadn’t managed to get out much in recent weeks so it was nice to be striding out along the Mt Banks firetrail in the sunshine. It wasn’t long before we were at the spot where we needed to descend to the half-way ledge.
The half-way ledge we’re planning on traversing
Early days and pretty easy going
A slightly slopey/loose section… at least for Tom! Apparently he was “careful” (and therefore I wasn’t)
Early on things were pretty obvious. There weren’t too many choices – just keep following the ledge. Generally it was fairly easy going, only one slopey section that made Tom nervous. Then we hit a big gully where there were many options.
ok, so that’s where we’ve been… now where are we going?
We got to explore many different ledges before finally hitting the logbook (and therefore hopefully the right height!).
rock formation
Entering the “Devils Throat” and the narrowest ledge of the route to date. We may have done some other narrow ledges unnecessarily while we were trying to find the correct level.
Finally we’re at the ‘devil’s throat’ at the right level… now it gets narrow
Lovely views of the Grose Valley
On the other side of the Devils Throat was a narrow ledge. The easiest (?) way across was to sit on your bum and ease yourself over. It was more awkward than it looked but dry for us so no great drama.
Tricky narrow bulging ledge to get past (is more awkward than it looks)
From there we scrambled up on to the tops for lunch – somewhat later than it might have been had we picked the correct route to start with.
Yes Tom you need to mantle!
Well-earned lunch!
From there it was a relatively easy traverse around onto the Mt Banks summit track. A great short day out.