Mt Barrosa 22 July 2012

Uncle Roddus tramping diary:tramp No 121

Mt Barrosa 22 July 2012

Ah, what a pleasure it was to finally get out in the mountains again after 2 1/2 months of working almost every weekend and also missing my ride on the last attempt to go tramping when I forgot to set my alarm and slept in.
I had been to Barrosa before, but last time had almost no views due to the clouds shrouding the hills that day. Barrosa is a lovely little 1300M bump just behind Mt Somers and is a pleasant easy/moderate day out with some magnificent views of the surrounding countryside.

I arrived at what I thought was the access point quite some time before the others arrived and soon saw the "No Public Access" sign on the gate I believe we went through last time. After waiting a while I decided to head back to Mt Somers village to make sure they weren't waiting for me there and that's when I spotted the new DOC access sign and gate. I continued on down the road and soon met Uncle Bernhard and the rest of The CTC trampers, whereupon I directed them to the access point.

Ten of us set off from the cars just past 10am on a cool overcast morning with a cool westerly breeze accounting for every one being well wrapped up as we set off. It wasn't long before layers were being removed, the wind dropped and the sun exposed itself as the clouds rolled back westwards to present us with what turned out to be a magnificent winters day. After a couple of short stops on the way up, we finally had lunch by a nice rock outcrop just below the summit, enjoying the vistas of the surrounding snow capped mountains and wondering if we could fine any of the Geodes(what ever they are)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geode) . Kerrie was keen to find something to take home. Soon after cresting the summit I happen to stumble upon a fine spherical geode already split in half and handed it to Kerrie, it was the best one we found, the rest being smashed fragments.

The rest of the early afternoon we spent traversing the tops via point 1355 and enjoying the stunning views before afternoon tea at point 1321, whereupon we dropped down the spur towards Waterfall Stream and back to the cars by 3:30pm. Being the time of the year it was we were expecting a fair amount of snow but the remnants of the June dump were few and far between and all crampons and some ice axes were left in the cars.