Here is a great video I saw on YouTube taken along the South Mt. Buffalo Lookout Track that gives some good views of what the Mt. Buffalo high country look like:
Tag Archive for 'Mt. Buffalo'
Here is a narrated video I took from the 1,723 meter summit of Victoria’s beautiful Mt. Buffalo:
This video is taken from the trail head of The Horn Track:
Prior Posting: Mt. Buffalo National Park – Part 1
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After walking up the snow covered road on the top of Mt. Buffalo I eventually reached the trail head to the 1,723 meter summit of The Horn which is highest point of the mountain:
However, even from the start of the trail the view was absolutely spectacular:
That rock formation that composes The Horn towers over one of the many massive gorges that surround this high rock plateau in northeast Victoria:
There was plenty of warning signs warning walkers about the danger of the ice on the trail but really it wasn’t all the bad:
As I ascended up The Horn I was quickly surrounded by a grove of ghosts gums that only grow in these high altitudes in Australia:
These ghosts gums however were all scorched from the 2006 bush fires on the mountain but they are slowly regenerating. After passing through the grove of ghost gums the trail then begins to pass up and over the large granite rocks that make up The Horn:
From the summit of The Horn, it offers unparalleled views of the top of Mt. Buffalo to include The Cathedral pictured below:
On the summit lookout there is a sign that labels all the various peaks visible from The Horn which is a good thing because the best views of the Victorian high country can be seen from here such as the snow covered slopes of Mt. Hotham:
Great views of my favorite mountain in Victoria, Mt. Feathertop are also available from the summit:
Looking south I could even see high peaks of Mt. Buller to the distant right and The Bluff out in the distance to the left with Mt. Cobbler in the center of the picture:
I spent a good 30-40 minutes on the top of The Horn just admiring the spectacular view because it is without a doubt on a clear day one of the best views in all of Australia. After finishing checking out the view I then descended back down the mountain and the menacing clouds that had rolled in earlier had passed offering a perfect picture of The Horn once I was down the mountain:
This walk up to the summit of The Horn is just one of the 23 total hikes available on the mountain that are all easily accessible from the paved road that traverses the mountain. For anyone planning to spend a day up on Mt. Buffalo I highly recommend at least completing one of these hikes because the views across Mt. Buffalo and the surrounding high country are truly outstanding and not to be missed.
Victoria has a wealth of great mountains that compose the Victorian Alps that are well worth checking out. My favorite mountain in Victoria is Mt. Feathertop but If there was one mountain I would recommend tourists to Victoria to visit, it would be Mt. Buffalo:
Mt. Buffalo is in the northeast of Victoria and received its name from the explorers Hume and Hovell who thought the mountain looked like a buffalo from a distance. The mountain is bordered by both the Buckland and Ovens Valleys that are lush with farms and wineries due to the ample amounts of water these stunning mountains provide:
Mt. Buffalo was first accessed by European settlers who used the top of the mountain as grazing land for their cattle. However, before European settlers arrived the mountain top was actually long used by the local Aboriginal tribes who made summer ascents of the mountain to feast on large bogong moths which annually flock to the Victorian high country every summer. The Aborigines enjoyed eating these moths because they were very rich in protein. The Aborigines no longer remain but the scenic wonders of the mountain does. To protect this scenic attraction, the Australian government designated Mt. Buffalo as Mt. Buffalo National Park in 1898.
I say that Mt. Buffalo is the best mountain for tourists to the state to visit simply because its many spectacular scenic attractions are easily accessible due to a well paved road that travels to the top of the mountain:
When I was driving up this road I constantly found myself wanting to stop and take in the spectacular scenery around every turn on the road. The rock formations that compose Mt. Buffalo are really quite stunning:
At times if you look closely at the massive rock formations you can even see waterfalls falling off the sides of the mountain:
However, not all of the mountain is scenic because large swathes of the forest that covers Mt. Buffalo has been burned down in recent years due to the periodic bush fires especially the massive 2006 fires that scorched large portions of the mountain. However, even the areas that are scorched are interesting to see because of how quickly the forest is regenerating from the bush fires:
For whatever reason though the scorched areas on the mountain are not recovering as fast as the scorched forests around Mt. Buller are. This could be because the fires burned more severely on the mountain compared to Mt. Buller as well as wetter climatic conditions on the mountain.
As the road begins to get above the tree line the massive rocky sides of the mountain become accessible for me to do some rock scrambling on:
From here I was also rewarded with a beautiful view looking back towards the Ovens Valley:
The snow capped peaks of the Victorian Alps was also easily visible from the rocks:
After finishing doing some walking on the rocks I then got back into my Jeep and continued driving to the top of the mountain. The top of Mt. Buffalo is actually a relatively flat plateau with various massive rock outcroppings:
Most of these rock outcroppings have trails accessible from the main road for visitors to take a short walk up to get some spectacular views of the areas such as from The Monolith pictured below:
A complete listing of the trails on Mt. Buffalo are available on the Mt. Buffalo National Park brochure that lists 23 different walks on the mountain.
However most visitors including myself, the first place they go is over to the Mt. Buffalo Chalet:
The Chalet was first opened in 1910 and has to have one of the best views of any hotel in all of Australia from its perch of 1,337 meters overlooking what is known as The Gorge as well as the snow capped Victorian Alps:
From the Chalet Victoria’s highest peak Mt. Bogong at 1,986 meters is easily visible to the northeast of Mt. Buffalo:
Pictures do not quite convey the view available from the Chalet the way they should so I downloaded an image from Google Earth which shows how the Chalet sits perched on the side of the massive cliffs that compose The Gorge:
The steep rocky cliffs of The Gorge are quite popular in Australia with both rock climbers and hang gliders which after having seen this rocky gorge myself, I can understand why. However, you do not have to be an active person to enjoy this area. The view itself makes visiting The Gorge and the Chalet well worth it.
After checking out The Gorge and the Chalet I then proceeded to head over to the beautiful Lake Catani:
There is no fishing at Lake Catani but it does serve as the main camping area for visitors to the park. Just up the road from Lake Catani is the hulking rock giant called the Cathedral:
Like most of the rock outcroppings on the mountain The Cathedral has a trail that allows visitors to access its summit. Further down the road was the Mt. Buffalo ski area:
The ski area is very simple with a single lift and not a whole lot of snow when I visited. This area is popular with beginning skiers but I saw a few people there sledding and even snowboarding on the limited snow. From the ski area the summit of Mt. Buffalo, the 1,723 The Horn was easily visible:
Some dark clouds were brewing over the mountain so I wanted to hurry up and get to the top of it before some bad weather moved in. So from the ski area I walked across the high alpine plain to the trail head leading to the summit of the Horn:
There is actually a road that goes to the start of the trail but due to the snow it was closed thus leaving me to walk a little bit farther then anticipated which wasn’t a problem:
The footing was a bit slippery trying to go up the mountain but I reached the official start of the trail to the summit with few issues. The view just from the start of the trail was quite scenic so I could only imagine how spectacular the view from the top must be.
Next Posting: Mt. Buffalo National Park – Part 2
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