AAWT winter traverse - Episode 22 (Taylors Crossing)

It was great to have another night camped off the snow although it was still cold enough for the tent to be covered in a layer of ice in the morning. So straight up it was a chilly and painful crossing of Gill Creek (for me anyway as Andy managed to jump fully across it). This was followed by a steep 500m ascent. After a short break we set off at a fast pace along open 4WD tracks to make the Mitta Mitta River at Taylor’s Crossing for a late lunch. We made the most of the sun and spent a considerable amount of time drying all our wet gear which was handy.

This point on the Mitta is the lowest point on the track since the Thomson River on day 1. At 3:30pm we still had almost 9km to go to get to our next, and fourth, food cache. Again we started off at a fast pace along some country roads. Unfortunately in our way was a large 350m ascent and then a 300m steep descent into a narrow valley with a large creek. Despite the strong moonlight our head torches were still required about 20 minutes before we reached the bottom of the valley. On our arrival at Morass Creek we found it to be flowing fast with lots of potential to get seriously wet or even injured. Frustratingly our food drop was only 1.5km away however we decided to wait for the next morning to make the river crossing and the steep ascent on the other side a safer proposition.