Mt Cheeseman - 28th April 2013

Uncle Roddus Tramping Diary: Tramp No 137

Mt Cheeseman - 28th April 2013

Things hadn't quite all gone to plan in the tramping stakes over the last month, last weekends trip was cancelled due to horrible weather and the weekend before that I got my days mixed up and couldn't go as I was working on Saturday, as I have been all this month. So it was great to finally get out in the mountains again after nearly a month.

The weather again played a part in defining the destination of this day trip. The original plan had been to tackle Castle Hill Peak via Mt Plenty but with North West winds forecast to be 60-70km and possibly 100Km  later in the day, we would have been pretty exposed. Our resourceful leader had an alternative plan already formulated before he left the city. Our destination now being Mt Cheeseman via The Hogs Back, where the mountains would shield us from the brunt of the wind for most of the trip. 12 of us left the cars at 10am with the temperature being mild and the sky slightly overcast as we headed up onto the Hogs back via a well developed mountain bike track. From the back of Hogs Back we left the track and crossed a small stream before heading up a steep ridge south of Tims Stream. At about 1400m things levelled out a bit and to keerp out of the wordt of the wind, we sidled the ridge and headed up onto the tops via the low point between Cheeseman  and point 1950, after which we stayed on the eastern side of the tops until a few brave souls actually ventured up on to Cheeseman peak to experience the wind trying to blow them back off again. The next problem was trying to find somewhere somewhat sheltered to have some lunch.  We finally hunkered down behind a rock out crop just above the tarn above point 1552 for a bite to eat. After that we headed past the tarn and dropped quickly down some reasonable scree into Waterfall Creek which appears to be pretty much free of any waterfalls. After that it was a short walk to find the mountain bike track then back to the cars about 3:30pm.