Looking south along the range

With Mount Rosea, 1009 metres, two kilometres to the north, at 1022 and 1009 metres respectively, North and South D'Alton Peaks are the highest peaks in the Grampians outside the Mount William Range. D'Alton Peaks stand in another world of tumble down boulders and off-track scrub. Rarely visited and hard to glimpse they lured Reinhold and I out for a quick overnighter in July 2017.

18 | BWA April 2018

First view of D'alton North from Grampians Peak Trail

Setting off from Borough Huts, heading “backwards”, up a new section of the Grampians Peak Trail (GPT) that descends from Mount Rosea, the day was gently overcast and cool – perfect for uphill walking.

The new section of track, wide and smooth, cut by a Bobcat through the scrub a year or two ago, passes the remnants of the lovely Cathcart Chislett Memorial Track, winding interestingly through the bush. It seems a bit of a shame that the new track has displaced such an appealing and natural route, but I guess the fashion nowadays is to walk side by side, holding hands…

At Sanderson Gap saddle where the GPT descends from Rosea down a very impressive set of stone steps, we departed from the tracked world. Taking a bearing through thick young acacias and eucalypt regrowth we headed south across the head of the enticingly named Valley of Mystery to the north slope of D'Alton North, aiming at a break in the small cliff.

Climbing gently through tall eucalypts with evidence of very old logging activity, the vegetation gradually changed to the smaller pricklier community familiar in the dryer

rocky country in the Grampians. Everything seemed to be in full bloom and bursting with life in this wet winter.

We lucked out to find a series of boulders stacked atop one another giving a very pleasant low angle arête to scramble up through the cliffs for 50 or so metres, just enough to make it feel as if we were climbing a real mountain.

Both D'Altons are plateau-like on the crest of the ridge, gently sloping to the west and the Moora Moora Valley. The vegetation became lower and thicker and harder to push through, but large open rocky areas often allow for easy walking interrupted by short bushy sections. There must be snow here at times and the moss beds were impressive and moist to the point of saturation.

The summit is a small distinct jumble of rocks emerging from the tangle of vegetation, giving an unusual perspective to the north of the bulk of Mount Rosea, the Mount Difficult Range and Arapiles on the western horizon. Still early in the day, we descended into the knotted jungle so common on the south-facing slopes of the higher Grampians peaks, heading for D'Alton South and lunch. As the

BWA April 2018 | 19

Moss garden on the summit of D'Altons North

crow flies it is less than a kilometre, but a band of cliffs required a bit of a dogleg to the west into the headwaters of the Moora Moora Creek. Ducking and weaving, rock hopping and crawling, it took three hours to get the 1200 or so metres distance onto the next small plateau.

Cresting the ridge, the view south along the Serra Range was simply superb. A gentle sun shone, warming and drying the rock as we picked our way along the ridge to the high point of D'Alton South. The entire Grampians is visible from here: north to Mount Zero, east to Mount William, south to the Serra Range, Napier beyond Hamilton, with the Victoria Range and Arapiles in the west. I don’t know if there is a better vantage point for viewing the entire Grampians and it’s made even better by the fact that so few people make it here.

Given how long all the scrub bashing had taken we decided to abandon our objective of traversing the range all the way down to

Mount Lubra (naive or what!) and enjoy our perfect mountain top for the night. Reinhold, who can’t pass up the chance to crest every high point possible, took the opportunity to climb to the top of the summit block, up a short wall of brittle sloping dinner plates. Certainly not a summit with hundreds of ascents; it is hard to imagine that more than a handfull of people have ever climbed D'Alton South summit. I passed on this, enjoying a quick circuit over the low boulders and moss fields looking out over the Moora Valley. Despite the recent rain it was still a 30 minute job to collect water from a

Mt Rosea from the south, Mt Difficult in the distance

20 | BWA April 2018

Campsite on the summit of D'Alton South

small trickle emerging from a moss bed for overnight drinking, but a very pleasant 30 minutes it was!

The forecast heavy rain visited along with strong gusty winds, but nicely the morning saw the rain ease off by about 10am, so there was the perfect reason to just lie about under the tarp and enjoy tea and porridge, reliving past glories at leisure. The wind even blew most of the dripping foliage dry so the jungle descent to Middleton Gap, while slippery under foot, was relatively dry. Low cloud (read fog) made visibility less than 100 metres so it was out with the compass again to keep our bearings amongst the looming boulders and scrub. It is a good thing Reinhold had the compass as at times our intuitive sense of where we should be headed was off by a good 90 degrees with all the ducking and swerving amongst the boulders and cliffs.

Interestingly, we came across a line of fairly recently placed tape markers and snapped twigs leading along the ridge and then eventually down an old 4WD track to Borough Huts. Someone has recently done a lot of work to mark a path here. Does anyone know whose work this is?

This is such a very nice part of the Grampians with amazing views and a different perspective on the range, being right in the middle, and surrounded by the highest peaks. It's certainly recommended for those who enjoy a good struggle in off track Grampians scrub and highly not recommended for those who don’t want to go home bleeding!

Jim has been a bushwalker and climber for years. He lives in Western Victoria near the Grampians where he is often found in thick scrub in pursuit of an off-track summit.