Let’s hope for blue skies, sunshine and no wind for this easy winter outing to mark my 200th trip led for the ANUMC. Those 200 hundred trips, mostly bushwalks or snowshoe trips, have involved over 600 individual participants, over 100 of who have courageously contributed to my persistent search for landscape photos with a natural human presence. Unlike some of my challenging epics in my twenty years in the Club, this trip is open to all. It will involve a very short snowshoe (or ski) from Dainers Gap up onto the Plains of Heaven where we will enjoy champagne and nibbles in the snow while admiring the view and contemplating why somebody would invest so much time and effort into the Club. (One reason is my love for the community of people that make up the ANUMC and the marvellous things that we do together.) Afterwards there is the option of exploring this mostly forgotten corner of the Kosciuszko National Park.
I’ve chosen the Plains for Heaven for my historic 200th trip because the location is accessible, historic and nice. Located just north of Dainers Gap on Kosciuszko Road the Plains of Heaven have a long associated with Australian winter sports. Before World War II, and long before there was anything at Perisher Valley or Smiggen Holes, skiing enthusiasts of the Kosciusko Alpine Club (KAC) would stay at the Hotel Kosciuszko (now Sponars Chalet) and ski nearby Mt. Sunrise and the Plains of Heaven, often enroute to the summit of Mt Kosciuszko. Formed in 1909 the KAC was the second ski club in Australia after the Kiandra Snow Shoe Club (1861).
The Plains of Heaven were apparently named by some 19th century stockman with a surprising taste for hyperbole who decided that these plains, with their views of the Main Range, were pretty attractive.
Ski or snowshoe from Dainers Gap onto the Plains of Heaven. After a snow picnic either return to the cars or explore further afield, including Mt Sunrise.