The Guardians

Via the Mount Gould Plateau Track.

Date: 19th February 2022 - Summit: 1394m

Photo credits: Ben Wells, Tracey Orr

Fresh (or more accurately, not so fresh) from summiting Mount Gould, we set our sights upon The Guardians. This essay continues on from the Mount Gould essay and begins from the small saddle below The Minotaur. We were a little weary, our bodies were overheating from bright, sunny conditions and we were in search of water…

As soon as Bender returned from his short side trip to The Minotaur, we set off in the general direction of The Guardians summit. Although “untracked” from here, we managed to locate enough animal pads as well as the occasional human-formed route to make the going relatively easy for the next few hours. The benefit of the low vegetation and relatively open walking meant we could just point ourselves towards the first high point and wander along. From that first high point we would drop to the tarn to refresh our dwindling water reserves and then climb again to the true high point.

Although we lost a little elevation on the way over to the first high point, it was worth it to arrive at a small band of pencil pines nestled in a grassy plain. The ground was soggy from recent rain and contained many pothole-sized sinks, filled with water. Pulling out our soft cups we drank greedily from the fresh cold pools, making sure not to disturb too much sediment as we took our fill. What a timely and glorious find! Topping up our water bottles and feeling a somewhat more lively now in the warmth of midday, we wound in and around small patches of more dense vegetation before climbing again, albeit much more gradually than we had been on Mount Gould.

It took only moments thereafter to reach the base of the first high point. We had pointed ourselves towards the area that held the most rock, as we much prefer rock hopping to wading through scrub! Our gamble paid off as a few steps onto the large rock slabs and a cairn suddenly appeared, followed by another and another and another! I tend to walk out front and navigate our route, as Bender walks behind to film and photograph. It works well and I love route finding, but I must admit it is lovely to get a rest in the form of a cairned route!

As we gained distance over the shoulder of the first high point, the view down towards The Guardians large tarn opened up. We could see we would have a choice of three high points north-west of the tarn. Obviously we had no need to camp at this oft-used spot, we briefly considered just staying high and skirting around from where we were to the summit, without dropping to the tarn. However, we both wanted to see the tarn and (again) refill our water supplies, so decided to beeline it for the tarn and then would summit from there. Low level scrub and a few small rocky outcrops made for easy going.

Reaching the tarn was definitely a highlight of the trip. We had been pushing hard for a consistent period in intense sun with no cloud cover to take the heat out of the day. Our clothes were damp with sweat and no matter how much water we drank, we still felt somewhat dehydrated.

Mixing up a strawberry protein shake with the tarns crystal clear, icy cold water was the treat we both needed, cooling our bodies while replenishing our heat affected muscles. Bender took the time to do some preventative maintenance on his feet, whilst I stretched and bent this way and that to settle my niggling back. Tarn Yoga is the best!

We already knew the highest point was the pile of rocks almost directly west from the tarn (the rocky knoll to the north of the tarn looks higher, but isn’t!) and so left the luxury of the tarn and set off again. Walking around the northern side of the lake and up the gentle sloping pineapple grass towards the high point was easy enough, as were the final few rocks to the summit itself. It had taken us 3.5 hours from the summit of Mount Gould to the summit of The Guardians. All up we had been walking for around 7.5 hours and were well in need of lunch!

And what a spot to lunch! Magnificent views, bright skies and salami and avocado wraps - we were lunching like kings. Spending our lunching time wisely, we tossed around ideas about how we would go about completing the traverse. Both of us were settled on the idea of dropping off the southern side of The Guardians, rather than retracing the day’s route back to camp via Mount Gould. I had already loaded a photo of Rock Monkey’s cairn, indicating which gully to drop off, so that wasn’t in need of discussion.

Normally when people complete the traverse they head off The Guardians and up onto the summit of Horizontal Hill, and then continue down to Lake Marion. The scrub between The Guardians and Horizontal Hill has a fierce reputation for being almost impenetrable at times. As we’d already summited Horizontal Hill two days’ prior, there was no real need or desire to repeat it - as nice as it was! - so instead could cut across the saddle and hopefully avoid unnecessary uphill scrub bashing. We used our time and bird’s eye view to take compass points of less dense patches of scrub.

Our strategy was to descend The Guardians and then cross the Guardian/Horizontal Hill saddle and rejoin our GPX track from the day before and use that to descend off Horizontal Hill. We had made speedy time off Horizontal Hill the day before and avoided the worst of the scrub, so that was a known quantity.

Whilst Bender wanted to climb part way up the shoulder of Horizontal Hill to reach our old track sooner, I wanted to avoid any unnecessary elevation gain and start dropping towards the lake as soon as we were in the saddle whilst roughly staying on course to meet the lower part of our previous days track. It had been a long, tiring day already and we still had a decent walk back to camp once we made it back to Lake Marion.

The ideal route from The Guardians to our previous day’s GPS route was the unknown, but at least scrub bashing is always easier going downhill than up! We settled somewhere in the middle.

Thanking The Guardians and leaving our five-star restaurant behind, we headed south from the summit to the jagged edge of The Guardians and located Becca’s expertly and generously placed cairn. Just to make sure I pulled out my trusty photo and made sure it matched!

It is very important to find the right gully in which to start the descent, as the sheer cliff faces on the southern side of The Guardians are not to be trifled with. We’d heard stories from others who’d taken alternative nearby gullies and ended up having to climb out of dead-ends or push down very exposed and sketchy areas of rock. From Becca’s cairn an obvious pad led us very steeply downwards for a few steps before it branched off both left and right. Left definitely looked more doable and our hunch turned out correct.

Using a combination of walking and bum sliding we continued downwards, again reaching another junction where distinct pads led both left and right! Ben wandered right to have a look whilst I wandered left. As I was carefully scouting I noticed a cairn to my left that sat in what appears much like a “window” made of rock.

Bender wasn’t convinced by the route he could see, so we explored the left route further. After climbing through the window (being careful not to knock the cairn) and down the other side of it we located more cairns and obvious wear marks. Always reassuring!

Still using a combination of walking and bum sliding we were making quick progress down. A friend had done the circuit a few weeks earlier, and unfortunately suffered a fall after one of the boulders dislodged. Aside from falling nearly 10m and giving himself a hell of a scare, he had later found out he’d also broken his foot! Thus we were being extra careful to check our weight on all the rocks we used to assist our descent and upon reaching the area he fell (obvious by the half hanging in boulder, slide marks in the dirt and clawed vegetation) Bender lifted the boulder and tossed it down the cliff so no one else suffered the same fate - or worse, it dropped onto a person below!

I was surprised by how easy I’d found the descent when we reached the scree field at the bottom, given my past issues with exposure. Maybe climbing Federation Peak a month earlier has desensitised me a little to scary stuff? Or perhaps it was the sketchy cliffs coming down off Mount Gould? Either way, we were down in about half an hour without major issue. Now the real work started. After the scree, we hit the scrub. The vegetation was over head high and blocking visibility, so it was time to use our earlier bearings and my “inner wombat compass” (!) to push in the direction we wanted to go.

I have a theory that letting the littlest person lead when scrub bashing makes sense, as we small people find gaps in scrub that taller people seem to miss. For this reason, I would be leading. I find picking routes through scrub quite enjoyable and like to channel my inner wombat - if I was a wombat where would my path of least resistance be? I was chatting away, telling Bender about my inner wombat, and I know if I had eyes in the back of my head, I would have seen him rolling his! (I was more cursing Xing’s wonderful knack of routing through gaps non-midgets can’t physically fit through! - Bender)

Well, the inner wombat was working as we ducked and weaved through the scrub. I kept waiting to encounter the hideous scrub that people bemoan, but with our route were lucky enough to avoid anything really terrible. Other than a few very short lived sections - a few steps at most - that required a little exertion it was pretty easy going and we reached the edge of the Horizontal/Guardians saddle in another 15 mins of walking.

Instead of crossing the saddle and climbing up towards Horizontal Hill, I continued contouring us south-east. This way we would gain the least amount of elevation whilst still hitting our old GPX line at some stage. Luckily it seemed to be working as we kept finding reasonably clear understories of either pandani or tea tree, and thus avoided having to push through any real scrub. Shortly after leaving the edge of the saddle we joined up with our previous day’s track. Yippee! From here it was home run time, straight down the hill!

It was with a sense of relief when our weary bodies reached Lake Marion ,and we treated ourselves to a decent break. We had made great timing on the descent from The Guardians and had a simple, known track to now follow all the way back to camp. Kicking back at the lake, boots off and enjoying iced tea made with fresh water, we looked up at the lakeside amphitheatre that is Horizontal Hill, Mount Gould and The Guardians and thought ourselves the luckiest people in the world. No grander a setting for an iced tea and bare feet!

Boots back on it was time for the death-march home: that end of the day kind of robotic walk where your body just wants to be back to camp. We were both feeling rather tired now but made record time from Lake Marion back to Nichols Junction and our tent. Perhaps it was the lighter day packs, perhaps it was the thought that the quicker we got back, the longer we had to cook dinner and relax before darkness hit. Whatever it was, it propelled us speedily along the track. And yes, I let off my usual squeal of delight when I saw the Tarptent finally come into view. Home sweet home away from home. The circuit as a day walk… who said it couldn’t be done? ;-)