KEEPING COMPANY WITH THE VIKING

The Razor-Viking Circuit is widely regarded as one of the finest walks in Australia. But that wasn’t quite enough for Craig Pearce, who decided to add to this iconic loop, but in the process, almost bit off more than he could chew.

By Craig Pearce

Beginning at the end. I hoped not my end. It’s been the end of at least one other, this middle rock band of Helicopter Spur, the final barb in the trident of rockfaces I’d clambered, clung to and kissed on my extended version of one of Australia’s most revered bushwalks—the Razor-Viking Circuit.

Some have been smart enough to examine Helicopter’s forbidding battleship prow and decline the opportunity. Too wet, too exposed, too vertical—it takes bravery to pull the pin, recalibrate and backtrack. Not many people are smart or agile enough to do this. Including me.

Fortunately, I don’t mind a clamber. So, in a painstakingly careful descent, I brought my inner frog to life. Fingers and feet suckered to barely there rock notches.

These moments of grip, kiss and hug—ie handholds doing as much as footholds to progress, intimacy with rockface to keep a backpack-encumbered centre of gravity as far away from tilt and topple as possible—are wince and worse avoidance strategies. Last time I looked, while PLBs and suchlike are great, they don’t activate themselves. A downside for the solo (ad)venturer.

There had been previous rockface confrontations, too: on the Thorn Range’s igneous metamorphosis into Crosscut Saw; and on the Viking’s rope-pull that mocked my airborne flailings as I corkscrewed my way up its renowned chimney. All three were circuit cruxes. But they were also beacons that high country bushwalking moths are compelled by.

River And Ridge

The Razor-Viking Circuit, it is claimed, takes in perhaps Victoria’s finest alpine scenery. Combining sections of formed tracks, fire trails, unmarked foot pads, and off-track bush bashing, the circuit is roughly 40km in length, and is located towards the southern taper of Victoria’s sprawling Alpine National Park, not far from Mt Buller (as the crow flies, anyway). Logistically speaking, this is only true if you opt for the non-traditional extended version I executed, and which thought about executing me.

The circuit—some of which forms part of the Australian Alps Walking Track (AAWT)—usually takes four days to complete, and commonly starts with an eastern approach drive to the Mt Howitt car park. From there, it’s a loop that passes through Macalister Springs (where the iconic Vallejo Gantner Hut grandly resides), and then climbs over a string of glorious peaks, spines and high points—including the Crosscut Saw, Mt Buggery, Mt Speculation, the Razor, and the Viking—before then looping back to your starting point at the Mt Howitt car park.

My ultra-version circuit added a top and tail to this. I began instead from the Upper Howqua Campground, and then traced the Howqua River upstream before veering off onto the Queen Spur Road (actually a track, sort of …) and then onto the Thorn Range walking track. Then I fell up to the Crosscut Saw and met the 101 version of the circuit.

From there, I did the standard circuit’s clockwise loop (minus the access section to and from Mt Howitt car park). Well, I nearly did the standard loop. Just 1.5km before arriving back at the Crosscut Saw, I branched off to take the AAWT southwest, over Mt Howitt and Mt Magdala. And then, diverging from the AAWT, I took the Helicopter Spur track to plunge back down to the Upper Howqua. All up, it was about 60+km and 4.5 days— more fun and adventurous than the trad circuit and, without getting too purist about it … oh stuff it, let’s get purist; rather than taking the cop-out short-cut version from Mt Howitt car park, it was satisfying climbing from Upper Howqua to Crosscut Saw, plus returning via the meadow-carpeted peak of Howitt itself, which presides at the heart of four river valleys: Macalister, Wonnangatta, Howqua and King. It is—understatedly— quite the perch from which to soak in the wild.

Go To Buggery

Approaching Upper Howqua there was a silken sea of cloud— glacier-like, its stream of water particles mid-air motionless— pouring over a mountainous brow whose furrows I was to become acquainted with in days to come.

Off and running along the Howqua’s banks, the dense forest’s powerful peppermint aromas did their druggy thing on me. Rosellas rocketed around and contributed to the healthy birdsong banter. But the Stanley Range Road’s blackberry snarl— ravenous for flesh–had me wishing for a full-body gaiter. Near the junction of the road and the Stanley Name Spur Track, a clearing allowed scrutiny of the Crosscut’s beehive-shaped hips. Meanwhile, a society of trees creaked covert whispers among themselves. It was an augury. I was to be belted with a booming wind that night.

And before I knew it, first hours of the walk, I was attached to one of those hips, on the crumbling stairway to Crosscut Saw’s heaven. Looking up. Looking down. Looking sideways and skyways.

This is where, and not for the last time either, the pad-cometrack-come-pad-come-nope-nothing-here-but-bush had me mystified. I did the same thing going down Viking and Helicopter. The consistent element of this veering and careering was singular: the navigator. It’s easier to lose a trail going down than up, but I am a man for all seasons, adept at losing it either way.

The Crosscut welcome included a fierce chill wind, but wow, what a vista. East, the maws of Terrible Hollow and Devils Staircase were eager to devour (they had been just about devoured themselves by loggers not that long ago); northeast, in the Razor-Viking Wilderness Zone, the Viking stood resolute over its geological minions. Raw mountains muscled up from the valleys. And then there was the 13-peaked ridgeline of the Crosscut Saw itself. Its causeway was a high-wire wonder wander (approach with caution on a gale-afflicted day. It’s excitement aplenty even when wind is barely there).

This is the Australian Alps. These mountains have been conjured up out of ancient continental drift and global tectonic shifting. “Some of the most common rock types,” writes Deidre Slattery in her book Australian Alps, “are among the oldest—those formed by the ooze at the bottom of that nameless ocean of Ordovician times [roughly 445-485 million years ago]. These are sedimentary rocks—sandstones, mudstones and shales, their layers crumpled and twisted ... In places they are broken and tilted upwards into striking lines of cliffs, such as the Crosscut Saw, the Viking and the Razor and the ridge that runs from Mount Howitt to the Bluff.”

I was now at about 1,700m. Most plant diversity at these higher elevations—above the snow gums with their restless, twisted elongations—is in shrubs, grasses and herbs. It is still unclear just how many non-vascular species—such as mosses, hornworts and liverworts—there are. “Lots,” is the scientific answer.

While taking in the 360° views, the chiming started. I have this ‘thing’—a(nother) symptom of my madness —where, typically in sunny, breezy weather a tinkling of gentle bells, clear and soft, finds its way to me. Leprechauns’ chatter? A musical concatenation of birdsong, ricocheting among the gossip of restlessly rubbing tree branches? Maybe it’s my diminishing hearing capacity in fantasy mode, patching together sounds present and sounds past, a subconscious confection? Or a cognitive auditory mapping, an unconscious way of connecting to the land? It’s comforting, however—an old friend, although more than once, it’s spooked me when I thought it meant people being unexpectedly present in remote bushland. Whatever the source, I was conscious of it in clearings that morning, but on the Crosscut, it was in full song.

Late afternoon on High Camp Buggery, the breeze was stiff, but nothing outrageous. I scoped out the options, settling on the prettier if more exposed site. As the wind strengthened, the wise walker would have moved their tent to a more protected location. That wasn’t me. Instead, I was nearly plucked and flung by the gusts that stampeded through the heights that night. Carnage greeted dawn: Monster branches carpeted the place. My non-impacted tent had clearly been blessed by the leprechauns.

But while I’d gotten away with my tent location, it had only just been the case.

One

The unusually shaped Vallejo Gantner Hut was designed by architect David McGlashen. It was completed in 1971, and is on the Victorian Heritage Register

From the Crosscut, thar blows the Viking Easy does it on the Upper Howqua

However one reason for diving into adventures like this one is to engage with uncertainty. In other words, take risks. Living life, not watching it. When doing this, each of us engages with a quandary: What is our appetite for risk? For every choice, there is a potential upside and a potential downside. What controls— GPS navigation device, SOS beacon, first aid kit, gaiters, route research etc—have you put in place to mitigate the risk?

The main risks I determined on this walk were: addressing rockfaces, and what the weather might be like for my planned camps on the exposed Buggery and Viking. Second-tier risks were water availability and managing the off-track sections. Others included walking solo and snakebite.

In hindsight, I was correct in my risk assessment. Hindsight is important as it gives me more knowledge when I’m approaching future walks. I don’t think this should be underestimated. The biggest risk of all is complacency. And perhaps attempting to push through a situation (eg bad weather, a river in spate) when the odds for success don’t warrant it.

On this walk, two situations caused by human foolishness presented obvious risks.

The first was on Mt Buggery. An ingénue group turned up late in the day. The wind was howling. One of them asked me to help him start a campfire. My response was, “Listen mate, start a fire now and sparks will go everywhere, and the risk of bushfire is significant so, no, I won’t help, and you shouldn’t do it.” Fuel stoves should be used for cooking up this high, no question. Both for safety reasons and because the wood is useful to the ecosystem. Enjoy your campsite’s local beauty, don’t consume it.

The second was snake protection. Or lack thereof. I’ve seen this many times before but, in this case, it shook me more than usual. At Mac Springs, I cringed as numerous gaiter-less and trouser-less legs walked real estate recently inhabited by a not easily intimidated tiger snake.

With no risk, the thrill is gone. So we don’t want to remove risk; we just want to manage it in a way that works best for us individually, and that doesn’t negatively impact the environment or others.

Not The Dead Zone

Day Two, the 14km from Buggery to the Viking was, despite being ‘on-track’, as physically demanding as the often off-track day to follow. It was also the drama-charged heart of the walk, taking me into the Razor-Viking Wilderness and its Barry Mountains.

The morning ascent of Mt Speculation was the day’s bodily wake-up call. It had more false summits than Henry the VIII had wives. No beheadings, but a psychological torment nevertheless, full of peak-to-come-but-no-not-yet betrayals.

From Catherine Saddle, and over Mt Despair, the way forward was crowded with surly seas of bitter bush pea; it was like going through a scratchy, waterless car wash. A good reason for long sleeves and trousers. But that was child’s play compared to the

NW approach to Viking Saddle. Here, the difficulty level went stupid. A disaster (yup, that’s the collective noun I’m searching for) of bushfire-victim fallen trees lay adamantly across the track. No point protesting. Just shut up and suck it up. Over, under, through, traversing and rarely around, they were the Devil’s work. Reaching the paradisical saddle was a relief. But the respite was fleeting. It was a bush-choked struggle to find water, and then there was the day’s final challenge—scaling the Viking.

Somewhat paradoxically, then, it was a day where Zen bloomed. Not so much in the journey’s rare interludes of pause, breathe, examine, but in its near-ceaseless motion and physical strain: The exquisite pleasure-pain of twanging muscles and ligaments on fire; the nearly always up or down; the heave-ho of body and its 18kg of tortoise-shell pack through barricades of trees. There wasn’t much flatness on this walk; quad busting and knee crunching were the order of the days.

This masochism required a whole of brain and body rewiring into a flow state. It was transformational. But that’s what nature’s company can deliver. Streaming through the treefall, I was liquid, atoms dispersed then reforming, an apparition among apparitions.

Flow, however, is not how I would describe the Viking’s cruel climb. Colouring blue the agony were the four kay-gees of water

I was freshly encumbered with, a close-call footfall on an alpine copperhead (right of way duly given), and yet more poleaxed tree trunks. The final indignities flung my way were the shoulder-shredding, five-metre rope-pull required to ascend the chimney, then the ego-sapping rock hole you’re required to somehow squirm through.

But there were rewards for these devotions: sunset’s soothing pastels; dawn’s chiaroscuro. Panoramas of untamed mountains, valleys; wilderness scrub vestments and rock ornamentation. Nothing human-sullied. Faint birdcall, a barely-there breeze. Country stilled. The gentlest, yet deepest possible, revelation. In the morning, darkness divulged clear, cathedral-vaulted skies. These were elevated moments, worth any effort where the surroundings foster a sense of communion—with the natural world, and maybe also a reckoning with who we are and our impact on all life on Earth.

Mystery Road

Everyone has their own approach to researching a walk before doing it, how much to leave to chance or, to put it another way, how much to discover for yourself. I fall (often, actually) into the mixed camp of doing a lot of research, then adapting to what transpires. This is code for inadvertently not heeding sage advice. Inevitably, it gives you ‘situations’ to resolve, where navigation, observational skills, physical conditioning and common sense all come into play. Day Three was one of those days.

I found myself re-covering the route from the very beginning, deviating off a Viking ridgeline, following some semblance

Beheadings be damned, finally on Mt Spec

The Viking chimney —not ideal after a 10hour day

Yellow everlasting daisies

Calm before the storm on Mt Buggery

Dusty daisy bush of track that led me to one of this walk’s trademark rockfaces which I, again, lumbered up. South Viking’s spine took me down to the Wonnangatta River on a relatively easy-to-follow (less obstructed than some of the trip’s formal ‘tracks’) pad, where The Cairn Gang had put in a good shift. Windows in the scrub permitted views over Wonnangatta Valley.

It was, regretfully, pad-AWOL time when the South Viking spur met the river perimeter’s feral blackberry bastardry. The river itself wasn’t bothered. It was in rude health. Frogs roared a ragged chorus. They and a squadron of dragonflies were glad tidings. Insect populations are suffering what has been described as, due to climate change and deforestation, an Armageddon. “Climate change is to be the nail in the coffin for quite a lot of creatures which are already in much reduced numbers,” said Dave Goulson, a University of Sussex ecologist. It is not rose-coloured glasses I wear when I observe that I see so few dragonflies compared to my youth. It was a comfort, then, to watch the dragonflies’ furious hovering here, and the way they iced themselves into immobility on wet riverside pebbles.

I woke the next day feeling like I’d been hit by a truck, buried under ten hangovers. The previous days’ efforts had hit home. I’d figured as much might occur, so my fourth day had a relatively relaxed agenda, with two siestas scheduled in. Before I got to these, I had four more entanglement-extraction off-track kms to negotiate. In an early warning, my pliable water bottle was plucked by branch from my pack then speared (duct tape to the rescue). Sticks: literal thorns in the side. I got a good spiking even when on-track out here.

Then there was what the map showed as a walking track from the Zeka Spur Track (a fire trail) to the Mt Howitt Walking Track. It is a conundrum. Let me put it like this: A lot of ‘discovering’ occurred on the way. Certainly, the park’s rangers know nothing about this Mystery Road. And—apart from a 500m pad I discovered and clung to as a drowning man would to a life raft in a churning sea—it was unadulterated, off-track, scrub-haggling.

I was hurled into the vortex as spectator, protagonist and victim. The topo was telling me one thing, terrain another. As majestic and diverse as the bush was, it was a willing party to the fracas, cracking me with kicks, trips and uppercuts. Those three would be at it all day. And as for trees, was it really necessary for so many of them to have toppled? Branches big and small, cluttered and clutching. It was a three-part calamity: approaching Viking Saddle; here on Mystery Road; then the following day down Helicopter Spur. If there was a test for maintaining the flow, I suspect this was it. Had the flow failed me? More likely I failed the flow.

The day’s first siesta was at Mac Springs, the grassy expanse, a toilet with a view and the snow gums’ restful, wind-rustled shade making it a five-star resort in the context of the circuit. Fresh running creek water, too, as much as you could drink! And there was also—oh—a feisty tiger. The sleek, three-metre snake and I met just by the creek. It raised its head, but, alas, gave no ground. We eyed each other warily. As soon as I stepped back it decided, “Yeah, smart move; I’ll leave now but don’t forget who owns this track, this country—and, grasshopper, it’s not a cityboy interloper like you.”

After lolling about for a couple of hours, I made my refreshingly unimpeded way to Magdala Saddle. The openness of Mt Howitt contrasted with the bush-thick ups and downs to Magdala. The saddle itself makes for a gorgeous, expansive, protected campsite, its dappled light seemingly visible in a late afternoon slumber. It cossetted and cradled me, flotsam in nature’s drift.

Backwards Baptism

It was a wrench to leave the calm of Magdala Saddle. But there was recompense in the ridgeline walking to come with its riveting views. The notch of Hells Window—a frame for beauty if ever there was one—came and went before the crux plummet down Helicopter Spur. I carefully negotiated my way—less an upright mammal than a crouching, side-walking crab—around the latter’s heights to find the pad.

The deeper down the spur I dropped, the more its pad was disguised by flurries of smashed trees. Eventually it morphed into an ancient, overgrown fire trail. The closer to the river (and my car at Upper Howqua River Campground) I went, the slower I became. As usual, I held on to the moments, keeping my ill-disciplined meditation on the theology of nature as real and kinaesthetic as I could. The invaluable qualities of nature bathing don’t abate the more they occur. If anything, they enlarge, in tandem with an increased understanding of, and empathy towards, nature itself.

The river engulfed me, cleansing some of the sweat and odour I’d been accumulating. An inverse baptism, occurring at the walk’s end, not its birth. But just as I didn’t want to lose those views—now ingrained not just into my memory, but my entire presence—I was unsure if I wanted even these stinky souvenirs to be cast away. W

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