A highlight marking the end of ‘Tassie’ summer and a great objective for any climber. This technical traverse taking in the remote and stunning skyline of Mt Geryon North to South in central Tasmania
A climb of alpine proportions requiring several abseils, some pitches of roped climbing and a lot of muesli bars.
26th February 2026
Fuelled on large bowls of muesli and even more faff, we got going on a schedule of 0630.
The dawn and sunrise are beautiful and mist lifts through the Cephissus creek and rolls either side of the hills.
Starting at our chosen camp of the Pool of Memories, we rapidly descend to the creek before an arduous ascent up the bush and scree field. Then traverse towards the North summit of Geryon.
Essentially swimming, climbing, surfing and fighting through dense scrub all the way. The vertical Fagus climbing was potentially the most physically demanding point in the day. I’ve found a new meaning in bush-walking.
Takes us 3 hours to get to the North summit, and the mountain is shrouded over, and visibility poor.
Taking our time, we abseil blindly into the fog.
Massive exposure on the abseil but the ropes pull out OK, before a short abseil to the notch proper below the impressive ‘Foresight’.
The clouds mist and mizzle on us, as Rob leads us to Foresight’s summit.
Rain sets in and we rap into the col south of Foresight.
Looking and attempting to swing across to the base of the crux pitch, I slip and slide and feel psyched out at the now wetness of the rock.
After some self-selected snack mix and finally admitting it is actually raining by donning our waterproof jackets, we agree it seems the mountain has spoken and we set about bailing.
Abseiling all the way to the bail anchor some 20-30m below the base of the crux pitch, it may not seem like it, but luck finds us. Our ropes won’t pull from the top of Foresight. Stuck.
Is this luck? Yes. It turns out to be.
Rob offers generously to ascend the ropes to try and salvage things as I’m left stranded at the bail anchors. The ropes move exceedingly slowly as I reascend to the col and join him. The clouds slowly part during this time. A tiny score of blue sky is trying to poke through above.
We feel this message from the mountain should not go unnoticed and sun hits the chimney and crux wall below the South Summit as we scramble over to it. Taking our time racking and preparing, I tie in for the lead.
This pitch has been weighing in the back of my mind the whole time, as subtle comment about the lead being exactly the sort of thing I’d be up for…
I had been anxious about its description, inconsistently recorded grade and mostly, the rain that had fallen on it most of the morning. Australian grade 17 or 19 depending which description or ‘Topo’ you read.
Thankfully time was on our side. I make slightly ginger, damp and nervous progress up the initial chimney, trying to place good gear, without dislodging large loose blocks.
Eventually surmounting the chockstone at the chimney’s top, sun bakes the slab to my left. I arrange my gear which serves as my last protection for some metres as I span across to an awkward step onto an uneven ledge.
Awkwardly then finding placing my next protection in a hand-sized crack I breathe and relax. We’re on.
The small crack above gives a sustained climb and long pitch of high-quality climbing. I feel myself flowing up the rock more, and discovering a few slings left at the back of my harness. I’m delighted I can protect the final traditional top section before arranging a slightly awkward but solid anchor above, to provide good inline belaying, without knocking loose blocks onto Rob.
Thrilled, I belay Rob up shouting encouragement and generally ‘frothing’. He takes us through the bulging crack above to the top and we summit South Geryon. Traverse technically done. Giddy in our success, we joke if we fuck up now, the rescue teams will deem us ‘on our way to do the Mt Geryon traverse’ not on our way down… Oblivious to our success.
The clouds clear significantly leaving stunning mountain vistas across the central highlands including exceptional views of the Acropolis.
A meandering scramble over to a short abseil and waddle down to slab before scrambling more down a large gully and a final abseil to the scree chute below.
We fail at finding our path from the morning and spend a while falling, sliding, slipping and crunching our way down vegetation and boulders eventually to find the ‘climbers’ camp’.
A quick stop here before ascending all the way to the labyrinth is necessary.
Mustering my tired legs, feeling heavily exhausted, we retrace our ascent up scree, bush and path to our camp at the Pool of Memories. Roughly 13 hours camp to camp.
The unlikeliness of our success is greatly celebrated, as is our personal and partnership growth. Our inability and incompetency to give up is reflected on, and we devour 500 grams of pasta, cups of chai tea and copious chocolate easily.
Mount Geryon traverse – North to South – Alternate Leads Onsight
Approach, descent and stats
A full two day/night outing.
Classical Tasmanian approach – approx one day’s bushwalk each way.
Hike in: We opted for the luxury of the ferry from Lake St Clair visitor centre to Narcissus hut and walked in the 17km to ‘the Labyrinthe’ to camp and fuel on cheap noodles. 573m elevation.
With our ridiculously heavy packs it took just over 6 hours (with an hour or so tea break at Pine Valley hut) – 4 hours moving time.
Hike out: via tourist track to the Labyrinthe via Pine Valley hut, we opted to move quickly to try and hitch on the return ferry – seems an available option to hopeful climbers, but space guarantee still left to chance. Game on. 16km. Took 4hrs 45m. We were boosting.
https://www.thesarvo.com/confluence/display/thesarvo/Cradle+Mountain+-+Lake+St+Clair
Kitlist
- Clothes, baselayers etc
- Waterproof + down jackets
- Sleeping bag, mat and bivvy sac – who needs a tent?
- Aeropress + coffee
- Water capacity total 2.35L
- Binoculars
- Disposible film camera
- PLB (ACR ResQLink 400 Personal Locator Beacon GPS for gear nerds)
- First aid kit, purification tabs + electrolyte tabs
- 38L Empty rucksack (used on the traverse)
- Climbing kit: 2x 60m mammut alpine senders, 5x lockers, petzl reverso, 3x prusiks, 2x 120cm, 1x 240cm slings, chalkbag, shoes, bailing cord 8m of 6mm cord + mallions
- Cams doubles of 0.75-2 size, offset nuts, nut tool, sling draws + long wildcountry quick draws
- Probably too much food in the form of 2x evening meals and plenty more
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