Gould, Olympus and Othrys: Three Abels from Lake St Clair

The idea for this trip started in late 2024. My core hiking crew had struggled to find dates for the coming summer to all walk together. After our big nine day Eldon trip earlier in the year, not everyone was sure they could manage another big mission for the coming summer. But with my family Overland trip planned for January, I spotted an opportunity. I needed to get a vehicle to Lake St Clair for when I finished that walk, and I needed someone to bring me back after dropping it off. The plan was hatched.

I suggested it to Woolza, who was keen to do a walk sometime in January. Maybe we could finally go in and do the elusive Mount Gould. It had missed us on quite a few trips in the past. We'd been very close to it several times, but the day had been too long or the weather too bad, and we'd never been able to get up to the top. This was the perfect opportunity: a ferry ride up the lake, climb Mount Gould, then connect a walk back to the other end of the lake taking in Mount Olympus and Mount Othrys, two Abels that had eluded us for some time as well.

It sounded like the perfect trip. Three peaks in three days, with two nights of spectacular campsites if the weather was good: one up on the Gould Plateau and one on Mount Olympus. We suggested it to the rest of the crew, who couldn't make it, but a week or two out Beaui chimed in and said he was coming. The trio was back, and we were keen as mustard.

Distance: 10.64km | Time: 6hrs 47min | Ascent: 917m | Conditions: Clear and warm, a hot one coming

We congregated at Lake St Clair early in the morning, booked on the 9am boat, with plenty of time to spare for a coffee and a catch up. By 9am we were on the boat and crossing the familiar lake. I've forgotten how many times I've made this trip across the water, but you definitely couldn't count them on your hands and fingers. It would have to be in the order of 100 times or more. It was a nice day, and it already felt like it was going to be a hot one.

We were off the boat by about 9:20 and heading straight out along the track. It wasn’t too long before we arrived at our turn off to the Gould Plateau. The going became a bit scrubby from there, but nothing we were afraid of given our off track experience over the last few years. We made good progress, and within about an hour and a half since departing the boat, we found ourselves popping out onto the Gould Plateau.

We didn't really know where we were going to camp, but it wasn't long before we were across the plateau and found a nice camp next to a tarn, with good views of Lake St Clair and the mountains around us, most of which we'd climbed before. Above us stood Mount Gould, our next objective.

After setting up camp and a quick bite for lunch, we put on day packs and headed off along the bit of a pad towards Mount Gould. The route didn't really follow the line I was expecting. We started on the pad, then gradually sidled up towards the scree around the main base of the peak. At one point we passed a lovely little spring coming out of a rock feature, which looked magic. We then started to climb rapidly, first through the lower shrubs, then up through a band of scrub, and then onto the dolerite proper. From here it would be a boulder scramble the entire way. After the Eldons the year before, this was not unfamiliar territory. On that trip we'd spent many hours on dolerite.

After maybe 25 minutes we were up on the main ridgeline that led towards the summit. We didn't think it was too far from here, but it took us quite a while, maybe 40 minutes or so, to get along to the ridge top. We arrived at the summit cairn very happy to be there. I'd walked past this peak literally dozens of times over the years without climbing it, and it's such a prominent feature that you can see it from everywhere. To finally be up here was pretty special.

It got better. I opened my phone to check a few things and found my YouTube channel had just ticked over 10,000 subscribers. Quite a moment to have on a summit like this one, so we celebrated that as well.

We spent maybe half an hour on top taking it all in before starting the return journey along the same route. By this point we were pretty sick of the boulders, and while descending a steep section, Woolza dropped his retracted hiking pole from his hand. It slipped down through a crack and we heard it rattle deep into a cavity below. "It's gone," I said. He wasn't giving up. He scrambled down the front of the face we were on, got down maybe 5 to 10 metres below, and started looking through the cracks in the rocks. From above I could now see the pole way below me, so I tried to give him some directions. He then crawled into a little cave he'd found, on his chest, arms outstretched, wrangling in amongst the rocks. He was not losing this pole. He'd left a set of them behind at the end of a walk once before, and they're not cheap.

I scrambled down beside him to see if I could help from behind, but he was now deep inside the cave. He extended his other pole and managed to scrape the lost one towards him, nearly losing it again as it almost tumbled down another crack, at which point it would have been gone for sure. But bit by bit he dragged his valuable pole back towards him, and with triumph he held it out and raised it in the air like King Arthur's sword after retrieving it. Meanwhile Beaui, maybe 50 metres away, sat on top of some rocks enjoying the views. He had watched the whole spectacle unfold. We managed to get it on video too, which made the great pole rescue even funnier.

The rest of the walk back to camp was pretty uneventful. We stopped by the spring I mentioned earlier and refilled our water. It was some of the freshest, coldest water I've ever had. Beautiful. We were back at camp nice and early with plenty of sunshine, and we spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing in our chairs, enjoying the views of Mount Gould, the Guardians, Mount Manfred and Mount Byron. To our southwest sat Mount Olympus, which we planned to take on the next day.

Distance: 13.58km | Time: 8hrs 46min | Ascent: 1,039m | Conditions: Hot, early mist then blue skies

We woke to a bit of mist in the valley below us, but it already felt hot. We got away by about 8am and started the return walk back down the track we'd come up the day before. As we departed camp, the mist and fog that had now risen out of the valley rolled in around us. We walked through it for a little while, but it wasn't long until it was completely gone and we had blue skies above us, with some awesome views as we descended. We went back down through the scrubby forest and were at the turnoff in about an hour and a half.

From there we headed along the familiar track that runs around Lake St Clair and started cruising down the lake on the well formed track. After about two hours and twenty minutes we pulled into one of the little beaches, took in some nice views, and sat there for a bit for a snack and a break. We then returned to the track and followed it for a little bit longer before finding a spot to leave the track, prepared for an extremely steep climb. I really hadn't been looking forward to this. I knew it was going to be tough, and I knew it was going to be a steep, long climb up the side of Mt Olympus.

We followed our noses and started the ascent. It was pretty open forest the whole way, with lots of foliage on the ground dropped from the trees above. It got a little deep at times, but we made steady progress and were surprised at how quickly we were moving. About an hour and 35 minutes after leaving the main track, we arrived at one of the lakes perched below the imposing cliffs of the main peak. We had arrived at Lake Helen.

As I arrived, I went to grab my GoPro off my shoulder strap, where I had it clipped with a new clip I'd just bought. It was missing. I'd somehow dropped it on the climb up. I turned around and walked back a few metres before realising it was silly to try to go back and find it. My GoPro now sits somewhere on the side of Mount Olympus with all the footage from the trip to that point recorded on it. I was annoyed, but my chances of finding it were slim, and given what we were trying to do that day, I didn't have time to head back and search. It was also really hot by now and I was sweating a lot, which settled the argument. So I licked my wounds at Lake Helen and had a very good swim over lunch instead. I will return at some point to try and find the camera!

After lunch we started the climb up a ridge that led us towards the main peak of Mount Olympus North. It was pretty steep but good going, with only a little bit of scrub. We made our way up a knife ridge, hit some boulder fields, and then came out onto the big flat plateau on top of Mount Olympus North.

It was really something to arrive here. I'd been thinking about being on this peak for so many years, having guided on the Overland Track and taken the boat down past this amazing looking mountain so many times. To finally be up on top was a magical moment. We dumped our packs, having been walking for about seven hours by this point, and made our way to the high point at the northern end. We were on the summit seven and a half hours after departing camp that morning.

We took in the views for a few minutes, but now that we had been going for quite a while, we just wanted to get to camp. The plan was to camp on the southern end of Mount Olympus, and we knew we had a ridge between the two big peaks that could be difficult to negotiate. We scooted back to the packs, picked them up, and made our way towards the ridgeline connecting Mount Olympus North and Mount Olympus South.

The ridge turned out to be basically a string of big boulders, which we were familiar with from previous similar trips. We made our way along it, dropped off a bit, and then climbed back up to arrive at the southern end of Mount Olympus. We followed the big southern plateau along to its summit and decided that this was as good a place as any to set up camp for the night, with some grassy areas nearby.

We'd walked for nearly nine hours. We were pretty tired, and we spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing, unwinding, and eating a lot of food. It had been a tough day, but a good one, and we now had plenty of time to take in the views from this amazing peak. It was really quite special to arrive and camp on the summit of a mountain I had gazed upon for so many years.

Distance: 11.60km | Time: 5hrs 55min | Ascent: 283m | Conditions: Overcast, a brief shower, warm

We'd heard the breeze going all night, and as I looked out of my tent I could see it was now pretty overcast. It felt like rain was on the way, despite it still being fairly warm. We still had one more peak to do, as well as the descent off the mountain we were perched on, and we were keen to get back to the car reasonably early. So we woke pretty early, around 5:30am, and were off hiking by 7am.

We headed south along the peak and found a large gully we could drop down off the back of the mountain. The walking to that point was pretty easy, with a fair bit of scrub along the way, and then we followed the big chute down. We were in the saddle between Mount Olympus and Mount Othrys, our next goal, after about an hour and a half.

From the saddle we started negotiating eucalypt and dry sclerophyll forest, sidling around Mount Othrys. It was pretty monotonous and a little frustrating at times in the scrubby forest, but it wasn't too long before we arrived at the peak itself and started negotiating boulders again. We followed the route we had loaded on our watches before the trip. We kept sidling along below the main peak until we arrived just under the summit on some boulders. We climbed up a bit, dropped our packs, and made the trip to the top.

It was a little airy and a bit of a scramble at the top, but we arrived happy to be there, with storm clouds gathering all around us. We could see a front moving in from the west, so we didn't hang around long. The others headed down to the packs while I took it in for a bit longer on the summit. Then I descended, had a bit of a snack, and we commenced our descent into the valley below.

We could now see our return route to the car through a big button grass valley. About a quarter of the way down we could see rain coming towards us, so the raincoat went on and it rained for a little bit before stopping. About four hours after departing camp, we were down onto the button grass plains of the Cuvier Valley.

It had heated up again and I was back in my T-shirt. Now we just wanted to move. We still had around 7 or 8 kilometres to go, flat the whole way, so we started motoring down the old Cuvier Valley Track. I'd actually never been this far up it before, so it was nice to finally see this part of a track I'd always known about.

We really started to crack out the kilometres, and this is where the peloton began. We pretended we were in the Tour de France and ran a peloton system: one person on the front for a kilometre, then they'd peel off to the back and the next person would take over. We did that every kilometre for the entire walk out. It was pretty funny and it got us moving quickly. We were back at the car six hours after leaving camp, which we were very happy with.

It was a great walk, and we timed it perfectly. The rain came over the next couple of days and really hammered the area, so we slipped through the window. Three peaks I had gazed upon for years, walked past dozens of times, and stared at from the ferry across the lake, all finally done. I was super happy.

The campsites were as good as we'd hoped: a tarn on the Gould Plateau with mountains all around, and a summit camp on Mount Olympus that would be hard to beat anywhere in Tasmania. Add in the great pole rescue, hitting 10,000 subscribers on the summit of Mount Gould, and the Tour de France peloton down the Cuvier Valley. It was a trip to remember.

And as planned all along, my car stayed behind at Lake St Clair, ready and waiting for the family Overland trip. As for my GoPro, it's still up there somewhere on the side of Mount Olympus.

The Walk by Numbers:

📌 Affiliate Disclaimer: This page may contain affiliate links. My content is supported by readers like you. So if you buy after clicking on a link, I get a commission without costing you extra 😜