The Steamers

Tuesday 10 April Baz and I took a leave day and did a walk on The Steamers range in the Main Range. The Steamers range is so named because it's four main features (the Prow, the Funnel, the Mast, and the Stern) make it resemble a Steamer (ship) when viewed from Mt Superbus which is just 2km to the SE.

Our ambitious goal was to traverse The Steamers and Mt Steamer, then follow the ridge to Lizard Point. This would be a 10km return trackless walk in very steep country. We expected the geological features to be so dramatic that we'd be able to navigate map-to-ground using map 9341-12 Mount Superbus, but we took 2 compasses and 2 GPS's to be safe. We also took 2 UHF 5watt hand-helds, mobile phones, hoochies (shelters), wet weather gear, and heaps of water, just in case.

We left home at 4am and after a bit of poor navigation by the in-car GPS system, parked the 4WD on a side track off Old Mill Rd north of The Prow at 7.20am (442991 6880504). We then headed SSE up the slope, then had a quick rest in a cave at the foot of the Funnel. The best route was along the north side of the Funnel, the Mast, and the Stern before crossing the more thickly wooded saddle to Mt Steamer. We had morning tea on the summit among the squat moss-covered trees and took a few photos. When we reached the NE edge of the summit of Mt Steamer it was time to decide whether we had time to make the big push to Lizard Point. It was 12 noon and we were looking over the edge at a steep descent into thick rainforest followed by 1km of serious bush bashing. We concluded it was too much for one day and we turned back to climb to the western summit of the Stern to take the classic Steamers photo of the Mast, Funnel, and Prow all in a row. We had lunch on this summit before retracing our steps to get back to the car at 3.20pm.

Click here to see The Steamers on WikiMapia

Here's some photos: