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Day Five: 02 January 2009 Stuart Saddle to Goon Moor Walking Time - 3.5 Hours |
| Susan's Diary |
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Day
5: We set the alarm
for 6am today but when it went off snow was heard falling, so Luca
switched it off. I woke up at 6:45am and read. Luca woke himself up at
7:30am. Due to the persistent snow there were some doubts as to what to do. We ruled out walking to Thwaites Plateau as the snow may make crossing the Four Peaks too difficult. Goon Moor was about 2 hours away so we thought we would head over there later, as the walk sounded pretty straight forward. During breakfast and a couple of games of cards, the snow became less frequent. Luca even got out and cleared the snow around the tent. It looked like about 5cms had fallen. Eventually, Luca put his doubts aside and agreed to walk to Goon Moor. After having a quick lunch and packing up, we set off at 2pm with the other two residents at Stuart Saddle (Mike and Sam). The track looked amazing through rock and scrub with the snow cover. Luca lead most of the way and had the unfortunate task of testing the snow and hoping there was no mud beneath it. Just after the campsite views to the south east were seen with Federation Peak finally coming into view. As expected, the entire Eastern Arthurs had a small covering of snow. When we reached TUMC Saddle, where presumably the TUMC rocks and arrow were covered in snow, we were exposed to the west and the winds were fierce. We did see the Western Arthurs and Western Portal (finally) which looked very impressive. They also had snow upon them. The rest of the walk to Goon Moor passed quickly with occasional scrub blocking the wind. Once at the Goon Moor we chose our platform and got to clean all the snow off it before putting up the tent by scraping it off with planks of wood. After setting p the tent we headed out onto Goon Moor for views east and west and for even stronger winds than earlier. With some good patches of blue sky, the weather looked promising for tomorrow, however the winds made for a cold night. We enjoyed satay rice with chilli and cashews for dinner. |
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