Mount Anne

Date: 27 December 2021 - Summit: 1423m

Photos credits: Ben Wells, Chris Schulz & Xing.

With an up and coming trip to Federation Peak planned for a few weeks down the track, we decided to head off along the Mount Anne Circuit as a practice for all things “scary”. There’s no denying there are a few short-lived semi-scary moments on the climb to Mount Anne’s summit, but in my opinion there are far worse areas of exposure along the circuit itself.

A slip and fall or a moment of careless inattention is rarely a good thing when climbing mountains, and this is never more true than on Mount Anne. Sadly, a few days after our visit, a hiker fell descending from Mt Anne resulting in serious injury. You are always, always at the mercy of the mountain.

This Mount Anne trip report begins at the track junction between Mount Anne and Shelf Camp along the Mount Anne Circuit. The walk in from the car park to the turn off to Shelf Camp is steep for the most part, awkward in others but overall not a terribly technical walk. Keep in mind though that after Memorial Hut, the newly manicured track reverts back to its rough and ready mix of boulders, muddy paths and big climbs. Just. How. We. Like. It.

The Junction….

Arriving at Shelf Camp in the early afternoon we quickly pitched the tent. I’m not entirely sure “pitch“ is the right word. Being a rock camp it’s a matter of stretching guy lines around rocks to hold your tent down! Climbing back up and out of the gully that houses Shelf Camp, we returned to the large cairn that marks the start of the track proper to Mount Anne.

Chris and I are generally a little apprehensive around exposed heights, and we had heard stories from our Abel-bagging friends that the “ledges” on Mount Anne were not to be trifled with. Still, we were optimistic. Chapman states that it should take around two hours return from Shelf Camp to the summit. It took us over 5 hours so our optimism was misplaced. But more on that later.

Leaving the large cairn behind us we wandered along the obvious track, enjoying the fact that although the sun was out the air was still on the cooler side. A pad initially wound in and around small patches of easy to traverse rock and low vegetation. Ahead, we could see multiple other parties in various stages of ascent or descent of the mountain. From this distance they looked tiny against Mount Anne’s towering vertical columns of dolerite. Given the Mount Anne track has only just re-opened after the 2019 bushfires - not to mention it was during the Christmas New Year break - we had expected to see a lot of other faces around.

The size of the rock beneath our feet slowly increased until it was a bit more scrambling and a bit less walking. Thus far it was quite easy as far as mountains go, and we chatted and laughed about this and that. Maybe attempting to take our minds off the scary bits to come? As we weaved our way up, over, around and through a large boulder field that lay at the base of the mountain we ran into two fellow hikers.

Chris and I were eager to quiz them on the “ledges”. The male counterpart of the pair had climbed Mount Anne numerous times and his father no less than 70 times! He gave us a hot tip that he never uses the ledges but rather the “chock stone” route. However, on pressing her, his female companion voted for the ledges! Ledges or chock stone?! Decisions, decisions.

Getting a little closer to the business end of Mount Anne we could see a bush walker hanging precariously off a ledge, his fire red jacket bright against the brown dolerite rock like a big red warning sign! Gulp. Watching his descent made the chock stone look more promising! At least we had made good time thus far.

After a few more minutes of scrambling up and over large boulders, we reached a small area of broken rock scattered with the odd bit of pineapple plant and some withered scrub. We were now at the base of the first of Mount Anne’s infamous ledges.

It’s not that the ledges are particularly slim - it was more that they sort of slope downwards. And each ledge has a substantial drop off it. If one was to slip it could be really quite ugly. Although the sun was out the ledges appear to lay in perpetual shade, and so were damp with some areas holding a slippery sort of slime or moss on them. Even from down below they looked sketchy, but the cairns definitely led towards them. In order to reach the first ledge and so the next cairn, we needed to half shimmy, half climb up a crack in a large slab of rock.

Both Chris and I made it look a lot harder than it actually was, and there was more than a bit of grunting as we squeezed ourselves up the crack. Ben followed suit and only as he was mid-shimmy did he realise it wasn’t just my general lack of coordination making it look awkward - it actually was quite awkward! Nevertheless all three of us had reached the first ledge without mishap. Fist pump! Oh wait - not so fast!

I led the way across the first ledge to the next one having a forward scout then returned to Chris pronouncing it safe and allowing Chris to scoot past me and then Ben . I should mention that Ben walked across the ledge, where as Chris and I stayed low to the ground “bum” shuffling across. I was feeling pretty good at this point - which surprised me - but unfortunately Chris was already not loving the experience.

We decided that Ben would stand guard at the drop off of the first ledge, and we would allow Chris to go up first. Chris felt safer with Ben standing on the outer edge of the ledge, but in hindsight this probably placed Ben at risk should Chris slip and take them both out!

It was time to move up to the second ledge. Moving from the first ledge to the second required standing and reaching up towards the next ledge and pulling your body upwards - all the time trying to block out the fact that if you fall backwards, it’s into thin air with a 10-15m drop. Unfortunately there is a decided lack of easy, secure hand grips for this move and the rock was quite polished, no doubt from years of people clambouring over it. After trying to make the stretch and failing a few times, a little bit of anxiety and/or panic had started bubbling up to the surface for Chris.

Witnessing Chris’s genuine discomfort prompted Ben to again offer to climb up first to spy any handholds, but given the two of them were balanced quite closely together, Chris was reluctant to try to squish past. We considered Ben giving Chris a leg up or shove up, but Chris felt this might just throw him off balance and without knowing what, if any, hand holds were above we couldn’t coax him to try. I offered to go up before Chris as I thought it might instil some confidence in him, but it was apparent that Chris was frozen. Only people who have a genuine fear of heights can understand how it can paralyse you. I’ve been there and its a pretty shitty feeling. No amount of others saying “it’s fine” or “it’s not really that bad” helps.

We had been up on this first ledge now for over 40 minutes, and I was getting worried that Ben had been balancing on the edge for too long. Chris was only getting more anxious with every suggestion we offered and and I was getting cold from sitting on the rock ledge waiting. The fun was disappearing rapidly and we were all getting a little tired and frustrated.

Tiredness and frustration can lead to accidents. I finally convinced Chris to come down off the ledge pronouncing the we “would just find another way up”. There’s always an alternative right? Chris returned to me and Ben continued up the ledge to see if he could spy an easier route with the advantage of a bird’s eye view. With Chris and I back down the crack, we started scouting around for other possible routes but were starting to think there wasn’t an alternative, when suddenly Chris spotted the chock stone that the hikers we had run into had mentioned.

Heading over to the chock stone it looked awkward, but doable. Ben was above the stone and we were below it. Unlike the ledges there was little real exposure (a fall would still result in bodily harm, but less of it) and using the chock stone would avoid all the ledges. Chris tried first. Wrapping his arms around the chock stone he pulled up but was just short of reaching a hand hold. The chock stone stuck out quite a way, so you sort of had to bear hug it to get up and over the top of it.

I tried next and almost made it but my midget arms and legs needed a few more inches! Damn being born short! As I was clinging on and trying to grunt my way up, another walker came up behind me. He asked if he could have a go and told us “he does pull ups all the time”. Well his pull ups paid off because he made it without much issue at all! By now we had used up a lot of excess time, and we needed to seriously just get to the summit.

In the interests of not burning any more of the afternoon away, Ben whipped his 10m length of 7mm static rope - the same rope that got Chris and I safely down a very wet Tilted Chasm almost a year earlier - out from his pack and fixed it around a large boulder above the chock stone. I love it when Ben pulls out a MacGyver move! After knotting off a few hand and foot holds, he lowered it down. The extra foot hold in just the right place gave us enough extra height to reach the top of the chock stone and haul our backsides up. Yippee! Pfft! Who needs chin ups!

After the chock stone I located a small hole that was just big enough to squeeze through, again allowing us to avoid another exposed ledge. Being back on the cairned route was a bonus, until it led to a huge rock column and… seemingly right off the end of the mountain!

Gingerly peering around the column, I could see the next cairn on yep you guessed it - yet another rocky ledge. FFS - what is it with Mount Anne and silly ledges! After telling Chris he soooooo wouldn’t like that way, I set off in the opposite direction determined to find a better option… and found a completely non-exposed route around the ledge!

From here to the summit, cairns led us upwards over some big and some really big rocks! Not quite Mount Pelion West - size but substantial nevertheless. It is important to note the direction of the last few cairns on the ascent to make the descent easier. I mentioned to the guys at one particular cairn that we needed to remember to turn left when we hit that cairn on our return. I was glad we had made a mental note of it, as on the return journey one might easily miss that turn and end up in a slightly airy spot!

After a much longer climb than any of us had expected, we reached the summit. It was well earned and the views were worth every bit of the trials and tribulations. The sun was shining and the low cloud of the early morning had all but lifted away. It was time to scoff down some peanut M&Ms, enjoy the views and thank the mountain for letting us climb all over her back!

We sat for a while in the sun, enjoying the moment but as is the norm the time to get down came around way too fast. Descending along the same route we had climbed up, we ran into a party of four blokes who were more than happy to join us for the remaining descent and use our crawl hole and chock stone to get down! It appears we weren’t the only ones on Mount Anne not enthralled with her dicey ledges.

That evening we watched from Shelf Camp as the night sky illuminated Mount Anne and thought ourselves pretty lucky to have stood high on her pinnacle. Ledges or no ledges, she is a mighty fine mountain. For now, it was time to sleep and rest before the next days adventures to Mount Lot.