Into Climbing, Canyoning, Mountain Biking or Bushwalking? Then join us for the best the Blue Mountains has to offer this Canberra Day long weekend (9th-11th March).
Overall travel plan:
We will leave from Canberra on Friday Night the 8th March and camp at the Cathedral of Ferns at Mt Wilson. En route, or before we depart Canberra, we will pick up food and supplies for a campfire on Saturday Night (fire restrictions allowing), which will form the main communally split cost for the trip in addition to fuel. On Sunday we will shift campsites to Blackheath Glen reserve and have dinner somewhere in Blackheath or Katoomba. After the completion of activities on Monday afternoon, each group will then head back to Canberra via the cars attached to each group.
Signing up to the BME and individual activities over each day
If you are interested in coming please sign-up to the BMC general trip AS WELL AS individual bushwalking/canyoning/climbing/MTB trips for each day over the weekend. Do this beforehand and contact me directly you change your mind so I have a preliminary idea of numbers for each activity and can keep track of everyone.
Rules for organising and leading trips:
- All trips should be day trips. No overnight trips. This is so that we have a chance to socialise as a club at the end of each day, and also to simplify the process of keeping in contact with everyone.
- A trip may consist of multiple activities (i.e. MTB, bushwalking, canyoning). These activities must be within the competency and skill level of all participants.
- Although people will have flexibility about which trip they are a part of on each day you won’t be allowed to be part of two different trips on the same day.
- Each trip must have at least 2 (but ideally 3+) members with substantial experience in the activity being undertaken.
- Maximum numbers for each trip will be dependent on the amount of the equipment available, any required pre-requisite experience on the part of the participants, advice of trip leaders and car space.
- All trips should be submitted via the standard ANUMC trip approval forum as for regular trips. Please include BME as well as the Day (Saturday/Sunday/Monday) as a prefix to the title of the trip.
- All trips for each day will be vetted by the executive as well as myself.
- Ideally we should have at least one trip for every activity type (MTB/Bushwalking/Canyoning/Climbing) on each day.
Zoning of trip locations:
Although the aim this year is definitely to make as much of the blue mountains accessible as possible, to limit the distance between groups and maintain some cohesion, I am going to zone the areas upon which I would strongly prefer activities to take place on each day:
Saturday: Locations accessible via the Bells Line of Road, north of the grose river but within the blue mountains proper (i.e. Mt Wilson, Mt Tomah, Pierces Pass, Bell, Berambing, Mt Irvine, Cosmic County).
Sunday: Pretty much any location except Kanangra reachable within 90min by car. In addition to the Saturday locations, additional locations for trips include Newnes, the Newnes Plateau and all areas accessible from the ridges south of the Grose Valley, Mt Hay, Mt York etc.
Monday: Areas on the Southern Side of the Grose Valley, Mt York, Mt Hay, Kanangra Walls, Kanangra region. Monday trips should be somewhat shorter than the others owing to the need to return to Canberra.
Individual provisions:
- Everyone should bring food of their own for activities on Saturday and most of Sunday.
- Every participant should bring at least 3L of water. There is a tank at Mt Wilson for refills, but due to potentially numbers of participants we don’t want to deplete this for other campers.
- Everyone will need to acquire all trip specific gear from the gear store/individually before we department.
See the description. Individual activities will be displayed as separate trips. Responsibility for participants wellbeing and whereabouts will be delegated to trip leaders during activities. Every person must be signed up for a trip on each day. A supply run will occur either in Canberra or en route to the Blue Mountains on Friday night to pickup food for Campfires on Friday. A group campfire (fire restrictions allowing) will be set up for cooking on Saturday night. On Sunday, dinner will be at either Blackheath or Katoomba. Everyone will finish activities around 5pm on Monday and be back in Canberra around ~8:30pm.