Mt. Perisher Summit Fiasco

You would think that the name, alone, would have scared us off... and the lack of proper trail description. But, no, we decided to hike up Mt. Perisher. Unlike in the states, national parks in Australia don't give out nice trail maps with detailed descriptions. At best there is a small brochure which summarizes the available trails... you are expected to buy guides or topo maps if you want to hike so we bought a trail map from the place we were staying. On one side of the guide was a poorly photocopied topo map that was almost illegible; on the other side was a description of the trail. Fair enough... we decided to head up the Tow Rope, hike across the ridge, and head down the Quad Chair per the description. It was described as one of the most spectacular hikes in the area.

We quickly realized there was no trail below the tow rope. It was a steep climb through beautiful alpine flowers, swampy wet bogs, little trickly streams, and gorse bushes:

Oh, and did I mention that if you stopped for a minute to catch your breath or take a picture you would be swarmed by the largest horse flies I have ever seen.

We summited Mt. Perisher and sat on a rock to look around. The views were spectacular, as promised:

We did not stay at the summit for long -- the bugs were too much for us.

We were rather tired from the hike up and decided not to go across the ridge, instead we decided to follow the double chair lift down. There was a nice gravel path below the double chair lift... but it was such loose gravel that the boys kept slipping and falling. We tried bushwacking but ended up in gorse up to Ian's chest and hard to turn back and hike all the way back up to the gravel path.

Finally we made it to the road and Ian had to jog several kilometers to get the car because the boys were too tired to go on. Exhausted from our fiasco hike we went into town and got pizza and ice creams until the kids were stuffed and smiling again.