Mt O'Malley - 14th March 2015

Uncle Roddus Tramping Diary: Tramp No. 155

Mt O'Malley 14th March 2015

CTC Club trip with 10 trampers tackling Mt O'Malley, due south of Mt Aickin above Arthurs Pass Township. A cloudy Saturday morning as we approach Arthurs Pass but the clouds are lifting and the temperature rising as we head off from the Devils Punchbowl Falls car park just prior to 10am. We soon hit the rather steep Aickins track and are quickly above the bushline and enjoying the magnificent views of the Pass and surrounding peaks. The clouds part and we get rather warm as we slog up the 1100 odd meters to point 1844 before heading south to point 1768 with some stops for views and food interrupting our progress. We Summit O'Malley, enjoy the views and the clement weather before dropping down a mediocre scree to the Tarn that feeds graham Stream. Some of us dip their feet in to the clear water and others wade in cautiously before submerging most of their bodies whereas this scribe unhesitatingly wades in and dives under the water before quickly surfacing with a shout of shock. Dives in again just in caser anybody missed it the first time and then exits the frigid  very quickly. After drying off, we set off  in the North West direction across a couple of  bowls and small ridges before hitting the original ridge we came up and the never ending track back down to the cars. According to My GPS log, we traveled 9.9 KM, climbed a total of 1420m and took just under 7 hours.