The Labyrinth

[MJD]

I just spent two nights in the Labyrinth and went up Walled Mtn & Macs Mtn. Its only 3km from Walled to Macs but it was pretty tough with snow on the plateau and on the high ridge before dropping off for a scrub bash before the final ascent. Beautiful day but a bit windy. Weather got worse overnight with high winds and rain - gave the tent a good work out.

Perrins Bluff and Mt Eros

The Acropolis from Lake Elysia

Olympus and Gould from Lake Elysia

[MJD]

Geryon bathed in evening sunlight

Walled Mtn

Walled Mtn

[MJD]

Sunrise from Lake Elysia

Perrins Bluff, Achilles, Thetis, Barn Bluff, Pelion West & NW ridge of Ossa

Macs Mtn from the end of the high ridge west of Walled Mtn

[Mickeymoo]

Nice work, you've got some great photos there looks good with a bit of snow still about, and looks like you got a couple of really nice sunsets/sunrises as well.

[MJD]

Hyperion & Eros with Pelion East in the background

Looking across the Labyrinth to Geryon & The Acropolis from Walled Mtn

Gould & the Minotaur

[MJD]

Cephissus Falls

[stu]

Great photos M, it looks like Walled mtn was on fire! Spectacular!
A group of us spent 5 days in the area at easter this year (base camping we did lots of peak bagging, a great area for it!).
Lake Elysia is one of my favourite camp sites - can't beat sunset views of the Acropolis & Geryon.
We also found the trip out to Macs a fairly hard day - I think we took a bad line at the base of Macs as we had a pretty painful bash up through scoparia - none of us had battle gear on, just shorts & t shirts (we had gaiters at least). A great out of the way summit with awesome views out west (Eldons etc.). I'm looking forward to getting back out there to try for Nereus.
Thanks for the inspiring photos & I agree with Michael - a little bit of snow adds more visual interest.

Stu.

[Nick S]

Nice MJD.
The clouds in some of your shots really add to the photos. Just wish I had some time off to get out there before all that snow goes away!
Nick

[MJD]

Thanks guys. I was having a good look at Nereus. It certainly is a remote spot and would need a good long summer's day of walking from a base camp at Lake Elysia. As for Macs. I went up slightly on the left hand side (looking at Macs) through some scrub and came back on the other side after spotting some pads from the summit. Better but still a bit rough.

I've been in the Labyrinth before but for some reason I was really struck by how dominating and close both Geryon and The Acropolis are from Lake Elysia. It's a great spot. And I was lucky enough to have it all to myself for two days.

A bit of snow is great for photos and it's fun, if tiring, for walking on - provided you're not sinking in too far with each step. Going downhill is certainly quicker.

[Christine Dennis]

Great photos of the Labyrinth. I camped at the climbers camp at foot of Geryon couple years back in Nov. Very hot, we walked up to Walled Mt. Very hot weather. What amazed me in your photos, the trees and ground look very dry and in some places a bit dead, guess the rains have not been as heavy as normal. well done Granny

[kitty.572]

Wow ... very very amazing pictures.
It´s great to see it. I like the pictures with the snow.. and of course with the sun .. so beautiful.
I hope to go there soon.. but I´m pregnant and so it´s not possible for me to go there.
What luck I can join the forum =)

[alliecat]

Beautiful shots - great, great colours. I especially loved the colour and lighting in the Acropolis from Lake Elysia. Nice work!

[kanangra]

those shots are sensational. Good enough for any calendar. My personal favourite is the 2nd. one. Good enough to frame.

[tasadam]

The images are a reflection of what fantastic conditions you had. Having seen it myself I can relate to the experience - it really is one of the most amazing places and I am envious!
I for one would really like to see these images without the post processing - Not a criticism but I find the heavy HDR effect in some is a distraction.

[MJD]

Ah yes, the joys of HDR in the hands of someone who knows just enough to be dangerous . However, it's an interesting post processing technique that does improve many a photo. I agree that it can be distracting and getting the balance right can be difficult. The pictures were taken with an Olympus E520 as jpegs (on only its second bushwalk). The original images are about 4.5MB in size and I posted quite small hdr versions of these. Here are three originals that have been "downsized" - the only thing that I have done is to open them in Photoshop Elements and then saved them with a different name at the lowest quality to get the file size down to just under 0.5MB.

I have posted the two images used to make the second picture: these are the -1 and +1 exposures; as well as the -1 exposure of Hyperion which looks pretty good by itself.

I appreciate the comments and hope this what you are interested in. If you want to see more or are interested in the larger originals then let me know. Unfortunatetly I don't have them posted anywhere else at this stage.

[Rick]

Love the third pic, almost looks like a painting! Spectacular!!