Mt Olympus - western approach

[pazzar]

I am considering attempting to summit Mt Olympus as a daywalk tomorrow and I was just wondering what the western approach is like, and roughly where do I leave the Cuvier track? I have looked through the forum and it looks most common to go via Echo Point or Byron Gap, but as a daywalk that is probably out of the question. Any information would be appreciated, PM me if it is too sensitive to post on here.

I understand that it will be covered in snow, that is part of the attraction. I will probably make a decision when I get there whether to attempt Olympus, or to go to Rufus and Hugel.

Cheers

Jared

[Bap]

I did Olympus as a overnighter last summer, the cuvier valley track is a slog with not much of a formed track along the buttongrass which does make harder to go fast. I would think this walk done as a day walk in winter would be a bit long. John Chapman details how to get up the home of the gods (so I assume it is not sensitive infomation) and this is the route I took. Leave the track about 1km before lake Petrarch (light Eucalypt forest), it's quite open so you make good progress. upto the summit. If your after peakbagging points I think you need to goto the northern summit as I think this is higher.

If I were you I would leave this one as an overnighter as the camping up there is great, it is one of the best campsites I have stayed at.

[ILUVSWTAS]

If your after peakbagging points I think you need to goto the northern summit as I think this is higher.

Correct.

[stu]

If I were you I would leave this one as an overnighter as the camping up there is great, it is one of the best campsites I have stayed at.

Agreed - one of the best (& reasonably easy off track) overnight trips in the area, it would be a bit of a waste not to stay at Lake Oenone.

I am imagining there will be snow all over the Lyell Highway & the Cuvier Valley track will also have seen a reasonable dump of snow making progress very slow...

[Bap]

Heard this morning that a snow plough was clearing the road of snow, a truck had jack knifed and the Lyell was closed.

[stepbystep]

Heard this morning that a snow plough was clearing the road of snow, a truck had jack knifed and the Lyell was closed.

Just went for a quick wander up the mtn from Nieka and noticed pazzar's car is in the driveway, think he's tucked up in bed
4WD only from Brady's Lake to Tarraleah 20cm+ snow so far.

[pazzar]

Yeah I had heard the same reports, so I stayed in bed. I will get out sometime soon hopefully.

[kramster]

When we went in March, we took the eastern approach from just north of Echo Pt.
The northern peak of Olympus is apparently the higher one (even though the southern peak has a more prominant trigg-pt).

From the edge of the summit plateau, we could see a boulder-field scramble most of the way down to Lake Petrach (with a small band of trees to get through). Haven't actually taken this route, so not sure how hard it would be - but given the ice + snow abouts at the moment, a long boulder scramble would become somewhat challenging.

There is another route I have heard about that goes from Byron Gap and follows the ridge-line up to the summit from there.