Snowy secrets - Kosciuszko's natural wonders

This week, to mark the start of winter (at least according to the calendar) I reveal my top 10 natural wonders of KNP. Some are well-known, others are secrets, but all are on our doorstep just waiting for us to explore.

When the snow clouds aren’t gathering, the clear astral nights of KNP allow for some stunning stargazing. One Canberran often found trekking by torchlight through the park is Ian Williams of Calwell, an astrophotographer with a passion for photographing the breath-taking aurora australis, better known as the southern lights.
“An ideal lookout to capture brilliant night skies and the aurora is the Wallace Craigie Lookout which is about 40km south from Jindabyne on the Barry Way,” reveals Williams, who often marvels “that in a world of 7.6 billion people how quiet this spot is and how brightly the stars shine!”

Mount Jagungal (Australia’s most northern peak above 2000 metres), which many say when viewed from some angles resembles a sleeping lion, is a spiritual place for both indigenous and non-indigenous people.

In Bold Horizon: High-Country Place, People and Story (Matthew Higgins, Rosenberg, 2018), Dean Freeman, a Wiradjuri man who has worked in high country national parks for two decades, refers to the 2061-metre mountain, as “more important than Mount Kosciuszko”.

“The importance of these places, and others like Mount Tabletop near Kiandra, was that they enabled views far into country,” explains Higgins, who writes “they were on songlines, which Dean defines as ‘basically a map in your head’.”

Alpine adventurer Peter Blunt of Theodore waxes lyrical about a recent pilgrimage to Mount Jagungal in his blog (www.52adventuresblog.com).

“Just before sunset I climbed a little higher to a rise from where I could take in the whole upper part of the mountain. It was stunning. Untouched. Pristine. White. Smooth fresh slopes as yet untracked. Aloof. Still high above. A sacred mountain. Like Machapuchare and Meru.”

Blunt further explains its significance: “In this part of the world it is one of the tallest peaks, reaching towards the stars. Like Kailash, it is the source of major rivers, the Geehi and the Tumut, which flow into the Upper Murray. For tens of thousands of years Aboriginal groups have come to this mountain to feast in summer on bogong moths and meet in ceremony on its slopes.”

If you are lucky to ever reach Jagungal’s summit on a fine day you will be rewarded by 360-degree views, one of the most expansive in the country.

The legendary Snowy River which has its genesis near Australia’s highest peak, and winds like a giant serpent through vast tracts of KNP, boasts some of the most dramatic river scenery in our country, including two little-known natural wonders downstream of Dalgety.

According to Richard Swain of Alpine River Adventures, the 20-metre Snowy Falls “are rarely seen but highly revered”. One of the only ways to see the falls is on one of Swain’s five-day expeditions down the Snowy.

However, if you’ve got visions of hurtling over the edge, don’t fret — “we enjoy them from afar and walk our kayaks around them,” reveals Swain.

In 1937, when daredevil kayakers Stanley Hanson and Arthur Hunt, the first Europeans to paddle the untamed Snowy River, reached this curious landmark, Hunt reported is his diary: “We found that in one place the river completely disappears and runs underground for fifty yards.”

Such was the extraordinary nature of the ‘Stone Bridge’, on their return the duo had trouble convincing many of its existence. “Very few people in the Monaro know of this and many were inclined to doubt the authenticity of the tale,” wrote Hunt.

Of course, Hansen and Hunt weren’t the first to discover the bridge, for apparently the first people of the Monaro used this natural crossing when they were travelling backwards and forwards from what is now Victoria.

The lower flow of the river since the advent of the Snowy Hydro Scheme in the 1950s has since exposed a surreal hotchpotch of flutes, fissures and spherical pools, created by thousands of years rushing water. Truly a sight to behold.

While the handful of show caves at Yarrangobilly (an ideal spot to check out if you’ve booked a ski trip to northern KNP and Mother Nature doesn’t come to the party) are well-known, they are just the tip of the iceberg, for there are actually dozens of other caves, the domain of serious spelunkers.

These include River Cave, where, as the name implies, intrepid adventurers traverse an underground stream. Sure, it’s bracing but you can always thaw out with a dip in another of the cave precinct’s natural wonders, an above-ground thermal pool where the water is a tepid 27 degrees all year round.

While the ski season doesn’t officially begin until next weekend, several high country trailblazers are already waiting in anticipation for the spring snow melt which can create snow arches over alpine creeks and lakes.

According to Brett Smith of Moonbah, “What makes them special is the fact that you can walk up there [to the main range] a week before summer when it’s maybe 30 degrees in Canberra and feel like in a few very short hours you’ve been transported to another part of the world!

“It just feels very unique and very, very few people venture out there to see it each year.”

Various points of the main range are punctuated with iconic granite tors, especially the area known as Ramshead Range which runs to the west, high above Thredbo Village.

This is a favourite spot for John Blay, whose much acclaimed book, On Track: Searching out the Bundian Way (NewSouth, 2015), highlights one of the main indigenous routes between the south coast and the roof of Australia.

“I love it up around the Ramshead Range where on a really clear morning, before the eucalypts start pumping that blue into the sky, you can see all the way to Balawan [Mt Imlay],” reveals Blay.

On a recent pilgrimage to the Ramsheads, Blay says, “Suddenly all the big rocks and tors turned black and then within seconds the blackness lifted off into the sky and took wing.”

Blay had witnessed thousands of Little ravens “who’d been feasting on the bogong moths, all taking flight at once.”

Although I carefully considered including the Little raven with its call so redolent of the Snowies, the only bird to make my list is the Yellow-faced honeyeater (Lichenostomus chrysops), which every autumn flies through Dead Horse Gap, at the southern end of the Thredbo Valley, on its migration to warmer climes.

Sure, this annual migration isn’t as spectacular as that of the Christmas Island red crabs, which march to the sea on the onset of every wet season to mate, but it’s just as important for the survival of this avian species in KNP.

Dave Woods of the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service explains why it flies through Dead Horse Gap: “The Thredbo Valley is a deeply incised riverine valley which allows migrating fauna, including birds, to keep to relatively low altitudes and pass at the gap, which is a relatively low point along the Great Dividing Range.

“Keeping low allows species to avoid the more challenging weather higher up the mountains or to at least reduce the amount of time exposed to such conditions.”

Twisted, stunted and weather-beaten, snow gums (Eucalyptus pauciflora) are icons of our high country. They are true survivors in harsh conditions. They are also favourite subjects of landscape photographers, especially after rain when their textured trunks gleam in sunlight.

Apart from being photogenic, snow gums also play a significant role in the ecology of our mountains as ‘rainmakers’.

Australian Alps National Parks Cooperative Management Program manager John McRae recently reported in this column that “studies show that if the 15,000-20,000 hectares of snow gums that have been removed since European settlement were regenerated, it would be the equivalent of increasing precipitation over that area by 10 per cent”.

So just how do the trees 'make' water? According to McRae, it’s simple science. “In the mountains during windy snow-storm conditions, trees create turbulence, encouraging snow to drop and build up on their lee side,” explains McRae.

“In misty conditions at freezing point, ice can build up on their leaves to form an ice-tree effect that retains moisture in the catchment.”

When the winter blizzards howl across the peaks, hibernating in the boulder fields of Mt Kosciuszko will be small numbers of mountain pygmy possums (Burramys parvus), the only Australian mammal that lives solely above the snow line.

Global warming and reduced snow cover pose a real threat for these endangered mouse-sized nocturnal marsupials which are dependant on the insulation provided by snow for survival.

Even when they aren’t hibernating during winter, it is near on impossible to encounter one of these cute critters by chance. However, while recently traipsing through the high country, Janis Norman of Spence stumbled across some students tagging a specimen. “It was a real treat for us to see it, we took photos and ooh’d and aah’d over it,” boasts Norman.

Did You Know? In NSW, the entire range of the mountain pygmy possum is in a 30km x 8km area of KNP between Thredbo and Kerries Ridge, where it occupies less than four square kilometres of habitat. The total population size is less than 500 adults.

CONTACT TIM: Email: timtheyowieman@bigpond.com or Twitter: @TimYowie or write c/- The Canberra Times, 9 Pirie St, Fyshwick.

Clue: Near an emerging dog park

Degree of difficulty: Very Hard.

Last week: Congratulations to Mary Bolto of Holder who was the first reader to correctly identify last week’s photo as a seat in the foyer of the National Library of Australia.

Bolto just beat Glenn Schwinghamer of Kambah to the prize, who, having worked at the much-loved national institution for 14 years, confesses “to recognising the marble, as opposed to the more recent seat”.

The clue related to the landmark library celebrating its 50th anniversary this year.

How to enter: Email your guess along with your name and address to timtheyowieman@bigpond.com. The first email sent after 10am, Saturday June 2, 2018 will win a double pass to Dendy.