#GA434 - 14:40; It has been more than 30 years since my closest previous encounter with the summit of Australia's tallest mountain. On that occasion, I made it to Charlotte's Pass with the geohoney, but the mission was aborted due to approaching inclement weather. The climb has been on the bucket list ever since!

In more recent times, discussion of the climb has extended to my geobuddies and after one of them took on the planning, the day had finally arrived. I collected Albida33, Sol de lune and Agent Basil and we headed for the hills just after 7:00 am. We picked up a couple of GC caches on the way, before meeting up with MrDamage and lokipagan at Jindabyne for coffee, then heading on to Thredbo for the final assault.

Up, up, up in the chairlift we went, before heading off along a track which was proving to be quite popular with Canberrans and a few Victorians who had the day off for public holidays, while the folks from NSW had to work.

The headwind was quite strong on the outward journey and I had a bit of sympathy for some of the walkers returning back past us armed with walking poles which were not suited to the metal walking path. Persistence paid off and we reached the summit a tick under two hours from the top of the chairlift.

The tailwind on the return journey seemed to make things easier, so we decided to take a detour and grab this cache before jumping the chairlift back down to the village. Took the Dead Horse Gap track as the previous finder had done and likewise followed the maintenance trail along the chairlift to the top. After a long slog, it was a slow climb up, but we made it and the celebratory snaps were taken, despite the signs being in hibernation for the summer. An amazing *2TF* as well TFTC tronador

Rated: for Overall Experience.