Grampians - Mt Difficult and Briggs Bluff Circuit

The climb up to Mt Difficult from Troopers Creek is a tough one, but rewarding. The loop around to Briggs Bluff via Long Point is also beautiful - all a very rewarding walk.

Grampians National Park

The 470m climb up to Mt Difficult, is, um, difficult. The trail follows follows the cliff face up. I guess it is a long, steep climb, which is where the difficulty comes in.

We hiked the circuit out to Long Point and around to Briggs Bluff, then back to Mt Difficult, in one day. It was a long weekend, there were many people out, some doing day walks, others camping overnight.

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Stats	Grampians National Park
	Sunday	Monday
	03/10/2010	04/10/2010
	Troopers Creek to Mt Difficult via Long Point and Briggs Bluff	Mt Difficult to Troopers Creek
Distance	19.2km	3.8km
Start Time	7.38am	6.52am
End Time	4.33pm	8.26am
Overall Average	2.0km/h	2.0km/h
Oodometer	19.2km	23.0km

Grampians - Mt Stapylton and Mt Zero

A day walk up to the summit of Mt Stapylton and over to Mt Zero.

Grampians National Park

The track ends just below the summit of Mt Stapylton.

We followed up the day hike by a two day hike up to Mt Difficult and Briggs Bluff.

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Stats	Grampians National Park
	Saturday
	02/10/2010
	Mt Stapylton and Mt Zero circuit from Mt Stapylton campground
Distance	16.8km
Start Time	7.14am
End Time	1.29pm
Overall Average	3.0km/h

On its best behavior

Walkers: fog and very cold conditions occur on the plateau anytime of year. Be prepared.

ABW Grampians trip - Major Mitchell Plateau

Translation, cos really, I've never seen a sign like this before whilst hiking, basically Plateau Subject to Alpine Conditions. Really? Yup. An unprotected windswept high plateau can be pretty bloody cold. But, Major Mitchell Plateau was on it's best behavior. Sunny days which seemed warm, despite the vapour coming from our mouths (turned out it was 9 degrees on Saturday during our plateau ascent). Simon declared it was the coldest he had ever slept (that's a big call for him), turned out it was 0.2 degrees overnight, one of his water bottles froze. But there was no wind, so really, the weather was perfect, indeed on our descent it turned windier (very very cold wind) and Monday morning it rained, as we were on the bus leaving the Grampians the plateau was shrouded in dense fog.

Amazing views. Excellent camping, so weird to camp next to flowing creeks. So much water. The Grampians and me are gonna make good friends.

Stats:
Saturday Distance: 13.2km Start time: 8.42am End time: 3.52pm Moving duration: 4h 12m Stationary duration: 3h 04m Moving average: 3.1km/h Overall average: 1.8km/h Max speed: 10.9km/h	Sunday Distance: 14.6km Start time: 8.59am End time: 4.23pm Moving duration: 4h 29m Stationary duration: 2h 47m Moving average: 3.2km/h Overall average: 2.0km/h Max speed: 7.2km/h