Dawn awoke me with a kiss of frost
The mountains around me stood silent watch
White crowned peaks, swift rivers below,
The secrets of the wind shall never be known.
The sun was setting on my left, casting shadow into the valley on my right. I was moving along Mt Eadley Stone’s ridgeline, picking my footing quickly but precisely along the rocky track. Hiking high up on the summit ridge with a blue sky, a fresh breeze and mountains all around, I felt life pulsate through my veins with great force. Camera slung across my shoulder, I was aiming to beat the sun to the summit of the Bluff to take some photos. It would be my first sunset from a mountaintop during my 74 day Australian Alps adventure.
The double peak of the Bluff-Mt Eadley Stone massif is situated in the heart of the Victorian Alps. Here, the usually mellow Great Dividing Range shoots up from wild river valleys to form dramatically steep hills. The Bluff as such is surrounded by some of Australia’s most impressive mountains: Mt Buller, Mt Howitt, Mt Speculation, Mt Cobbler, Mt McDonald, Mt Clear, and the undulating knife blade ridge of the Crosscut Saw. The vista from the top of the Bluff creates the effect of being surrounded by a titanic amphitheatre formed by the spine of the Great Dividing Range. The remote wilderness of the area means that even by taking in an immense vista with a 50km radius, signs of the human world are minimal. The only obvious signs of civilization are the upper slopes of Mt Buller, where the ski village can be discerned by the keen eye.
In such a setting, the mind is set free, and the surroundings can be appreciated with a calm disposition. Dominating the scenery along the track were the twisted figures of an incredibly tough tree: the Snowgum (Eucalyptus Pauciflora). The pain of living in harsh alpine conditions is written into every woody fibre of these plants. The age of any individual tree can be estimated by the girth of their trunk, for most of these trees stand at a uniform height. It is a rare case where gaining extra height would prove a disadvantage, for it would leave the taller plant exposed to the howling, icy winds. Tormented by wind and cold, they have twisted their trunks into all kinds of fantastic shapes, as if pleading for their suffering to end.
As I got closer to the summit I caught sight of an immense wedge tail eagle. He was hovering barely ten metres above the summit, trying to make way in the headwind, its wings spread out completely motionless as if he was levitating. He was so close I could see individual feathers being ruffled by the wind surging past. My trance of staring at the eagle didn’t last long, the wind changed and suddenly he was lifted up and started circling, rising quickly and soon disappearing from sight.
‘I feel pretty good for day 17’ I remember thinking to myself.
Although I was still less than a quarter of the way through my traverse of the Australian Alps, the nomadic routine has begun to establish itself. With each passing day, my body felt a little stronger and a little fitter. Rather than stressing about the weight of my pack or the discomforts of the weather, I was beginning to pay more attention to my surroundings. An ability to shift my focus away from my own being and extend my attention to other things around me was a key step in truly enjoying my journey through the Alps.
Standing there, on the summit of the Bluff, as the sun sank a bit closer to the horizon, and a golden glow was cast across the landscape, a deep sense of calm came. I was amazed at the transformation that took place, as the mountains draped themselves in their night cloaks of twilight.
Eventually, my mind became free of thought, ready to accept whatever was going to fall my way. Time became irrelevant and my mind became, for those brief moments at least, unbound and truly free. It was a rare moment, one I will always remember, for in that moment, I felt complete.
