Reaching the top of Mt Chowan is a challenge, but a worthy challenge. Mt Chowan sits in the north-eastern corner of Mt Jerusalem National Park and is 500m high. Fire trails lead up along the side of the mountain from the south and the north. This weekend we tackled the northern ascent.
The northern fire trail is cut into the western side of the Burringbar Range. The Range extends all the way from Mt Chowan to Mooball National Park in the north-east. As prevailing winds from the east bring the majority of the rains, the terrain in the rain-shadow on the western side is more fragile and vulnerable to losing it’s structural integrity when disturbed, especially on a steep slope. This clearly was not the ideal place to cut a vehicle trail and dry parched terrain is obvious in some spots.
A choice of 2 routes
Luckily, local mountain biking groups have made some excellent single tracks through the forest along the top of the range in a way that doesn’t seem to have negatively impacted the vegetation.
We walked up along the fire trail as it offers some great views, particularly a unique profile of Mt Chowan itself, a mountain obscured from most angles by vegetation and surrounding hills. Views of Wollumbin, as always, were to be seen wherever there were breaks in the trees.
When we reached the grassy ‘resting place’ that has been conveniently established below the track to the top, we had some well-deserved tea & sandwiches before hauling ourselves up the steep ascent. There is no view from the top itself and in fact there is no track to the very summit but the views along the ascent are expansive and beautiful. The track curves around the mountain, about 8m below the top, and eventually starts to descend along the southern track.
From this point we turned and retraced our steps down the steep knee-crunching decline. Another cup of tea was needed on the grassy clearing to calm the shaky knees before taking the mountain biking tracks through beautiful forest back to our starting point.
This trail has a few gems worth making the effort for. The Mt Chowan northern trail starts on Mt Chowan Rd which you can access from Smith’s Creek Rd between Uki and Stokers Siding.
