High Country track clearing.

This is probably the first year in nearly 10 the high country has had a normal wet winter combined with 2 extremely windy storms that have uprooted the large number of trees. In the 2003 fire area many of the dead trees are coming down as well.
Craig.......

Craig is correct about the weather aspect.
I have not seen so many trees down up there in my life.

Cup weekend I was up McKillops Bridge area, Did Tingaringy, 3 km's in first tree, clear it 20 meters further next one we spent 5 hours clearing 6 km's of track before the rain came down big time. time to leave.

Parks Vic said the track was open, Right!!! the gate was unlocked but they had not driven any of the tracks.

I'm with TLCV our club has a number of weekends allocated to us to work with Parks and DSE on clearing work all over the Vic High Country, the funny part is they are offering a fuel subsidy to the clubs to pass on to their members to assist with cost's.
Got to be a measure of how desperate they are to get them clear.

Towing a camper into Wonnangatta is easy & not very hard on the suspension, in fact I'd have no hesitation in taking a standard 6x4 box trailer with leaf springs in via the East Buffalo route even in the wet. The track is wide, not particually slippery & the errosion ditches pretty small. All the old bog holes are gone & the majority is high range.
The Simpson is more an endurance event & much harder on both the trailer & the tow vehicle. You can assure the wife she won't even break an egg ;-)
Zeka Spur, Hearne Spur, Wombat Spur, Heart Spur & the Humffray river track are all much steeper & in the wet can become dangerous. Although possible, these are best taken without the trailer & that's why I normally recomend camper trailers base camp & do day trips on the harder stuff.
Appreciate your thanks, we are just one of a dozen up there. The 4x4 association are working hard to keep the tracks open & saw this opportunity to combine with Parks to do something positive in the bush. It was feared that without sufficient $$$$$ that some badly treed tracks would not be cleared this year then closed forever. Vic clubs wont sit on their hands & watch the high country go the way of NSW.
Cheers Craig.........

Thanks yet again.

Yes I do agree that the Simpson is more of an endurance event, although I think that our Subaru Forester would have made it across 98% of the trip with assistance across the remaining 2%. Mind you I think you need to pick your time to do the trip!!
A degree of difficulty is added by towing a trailor but a HD off- road trailor with I.S. ,as in our case, was OK, though the authorities still advise against taken trailors into the desert.

Funny though, SWMBO sees the High Country a "Real" 4wd territory and is quite anxious about venturing in there, but takes the desert and outback travel in her stride. Its the steep and narrow tracks that gives her the nerves. Our only trip into the High country with the camper has been to Lake Cobbler, Via the Upper Rose/Bennies route. She was ok with that. [We were followed in there later by a Falcon Ute!!!]

I think someone said in the pravious post that you can get a commodore [or Falcon ute] up to the helipad at Van Dammes, so I hope to reassure her with that Info as well as you reassurances.

Take Care

Cheers