Richmonds - Rintoul hut

6.35km 6 hours. Yep 1km per hour. Christmas morning was beautiful and sunny at Old man hut so we took our time leaving - about 0830 compared to the usual 0730. The climb out of the valley wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be, in fact all the way up to little rintoul was just lovely. And the views from up there were great as well. Karen found that there was reception so we all called our families to wish them happy Christmas.

Straight away after that there was a quite trying bit with a small ledge running up a rock face. It would have been easy if it was closer to the ground but I got the shakes going up and took quite a long time to calm down.

Heading down little rintoul and across to Mt rintoul was over lots of loose rocks and stones so it was very slow going. The path up was so steep from our vantage point at the bottom I was a little concerned that about how I would be able to handle it, so I spent pur lunch break that we took at the side of the path stressing about it but once we were doing it it was absolutely OK.

As we ascended the weather closed in so there were no amazing views but maybe that was just as well. The rain set in when we were starting our decent which was through lots of loose scree, patches of rocks and down into the forest. We all took turns slipping and falling in the wet. Luckily no one did themselves an injury so we arrived relatively unscathed.

The 6 bed hut already had 2 people in it when we rocked in so I got my first top bunk. 2 more arrived after us so we had a jolly crew for Christmas supper.Read more