Mt Beerwah

I am officially getting old. Today Corey (Baz & Sandy's son) was kind enough to take me up Mt Beerwah, which is the highest of the Glasshouse Mountains on the Sunshine Coast. As I huffed and puffed my way up the rock-face, attempting to follow the path Corey took as he bounded along, I felt every day of my age (37).

From the unusually empty carpark (three cars including mine), it took ten minutes on the well maintained graded track to reach the base of the mountain. If you work in a high-rise, picture yourself walking up to the wall of your building knowing you have to climb the thing - that's a good approximation of how I felt. Shite, it looked steep from the bottom. It turned out to be not as bad as it looked - but close.

45 minutes after starting the climb we stood on the summit, and that included a five minute stop at the Galleries halfway up (see top left photo below). We were blessed with gorgeous weather - a cloudless, sunny sky, and a cool breeze - and the fairly clear air provided an awesome view of the surrounding peaks. The photo above is Mts Coonowrin (closer) and Ngungun (further) and is the reverse view to the one in the April 07 post below.

After a rest and some munchies we started the descent, which took quite a bit longer than the ascent (1.5 hours) due to a couple of small adventures along the way. Soon after departing the summit we left the main route to explore a protuberant feature. This side trip provided an interesting view of the mountain (bottom left photo below), and was a lot of fun. When we reached the Galleries again Corey showed me a cave. It has a small entrance and it look me a few minutes to talk myself into crawling inside. Corey has crawled through before to the third chamber - where there are bats - but I only went far enough to see into the second chamber (bottom right photo below). By the time we were descending, the carpark was full and we passed six or seven groups on their way up.

This was a terrific walk/climb in perfect weather and with excellent company. Thanks Corey!

Here's a map:



And here's some photos: