Charlotte Pass to Hedley Tarn / Blue Lake / Club Lake / Lake Albina

We walked from the other side of this National Park today, Charlotte Pass, along the Main Range track, passing the four glacial lakes.

The track began with a steep downhill to the Snowy River, crossing the river by rock hopping, then followed by a steep climb to the top of the hill. The track became relatively flat for a short while before another steep downhill, crossing a very small creek, then another steep climb to the top.

 

 

 

Before Blue Lake we walked past Hedley Tarn. A small glacial lake in a shape of a question mark (?).

  

Once we got to the top of the second hill, we walked to an intersection and turned into a small track on the right hand side. This track took us down to the Blue Lake.

It was raining, foggy, dark and cloudy on the day. The Blue Lake didn't look very blue which was very disappointing. Looked more like "Grey Lake".

We had a quick snack in the rain before headed back to the intersection and continued our walk.

The walk was very up and down, and the weather wasn't the best, which made this walk very tiring.

We were walking in the rain and clouds most of the day which obstructed our view of the surroundings. Other than the lakes, I didn't know where I was or where I was heading to. The mystery both excited me and annoyed me at the same time. Through a few breaks of clouds and very rare sunshine, I could see that the surroundings was in fact very open and beautiful. The openness relaxed me and made the walk less stressful, but unfortunately it was short lived.

We then walked uphill to Carruthers Peak. A couple we met at the peak asked us if this was Kosciuszko summit. I didn't want to be mean but I was really holding back my laughter as they were way off!!

We then walked along the ridge above Club Lake....

Finally we reached Lake Albina. We had a little bit of sunshine there. I was so excited and thought the day was clearing up. I don't know why I was so optimistic as I was tricked by the weather many times on this same day. After half a minute of taking photos of Lake Albina, the cloud creeped in and covered the lake. Thanks clouds!

After quick photo session at Lake Albina, we turned around and traced our way back to Charlotte Pass via the same way. More than half of the time we were walking in clouds with only short distance visions.

As expected, there were much less people on this track compared to the summit walk. After the Blue Lake, most people turned back.

Another great workout today. I wish to come back to do this track again, hopefully with better weather. I enjoyed this walk more than the Summit walk, and I think the view would have been so much more beautiful on a clear day. There were many small track from Jindabyne to Charlotte Pass, which I was very interested to do but didn't get enough daylight to do them. Daylight was so much shorter on a weather like today.

Total distance: 18.8km
Climb: 825m

Difficulty: Hard

Go to the link below for information and map for this walk. We did only the top half of the Main Range walking track and returned the same way.
http://beyondtracks.com/walks/kosciuszko-national-park/main-range-walking-track-loop/