How did you get into hiking?
‍

Despite my Dad's best efforts to get me into bushwalking when I was a kid (I hated it), I didn't discover my love for the outdoors until I was 21. I had returned from 60 days in Europe and read about Meander Falls being frozen over. Dad and I went on a hike to the falls and witnessed 80m of ice melting and breaking apart. It was an incredible sight and spurred my curiosity to discover what else was out there.

‍

‍
What is your favourite place to pitch a tent?

‍

Any mountain summit or alpine lake is a great spot. But I have a special place in my heart for Lee's Paddocks in the Mersey Valley.

‍

How many Abels have you climbed?

‍

About 35. I would have to recount!

‍

What is your favourite walk?

‍

Walking through Dixon's Kingdom is magical, but the top spot has to go to climbing Frenchman's Cap. I shared my first trip to the Frenchman with my Dad and it was a truely special trip. A bad weather front scared most walkers away and we had the new Tahune hut all to our selves and some track workers, (one who I knew!). When we hit the carpark after 46kms, despite being knackered, we both felt the urge to turn around and climb it again. This peak calls to my inner adventurer in a way that most other peaks do not.

‍
What is the hardest walk you have done?

‍

3 days of offtrack walking to summit the Hippogriff, Chimera and Mt Gell. This was still in my early days of bushwalking and I had no idea what to expect. I was certainly not expecting how gruelling the thick bush and scrub would be, or how steep some of the gullies would be. This trip gave me a special appreciation for walking tracks, and a much greater respect for people who do lengthy offtrack walks into places like the Spires or White Monolith range. Mt Gell is a walk in the park compared the those places.

‍

‍