A shorter trip with a few tough scramble sections to make it interesting. Good views from the infrequented summit in a gusty wind. 7 leisurely hours return.

Mt Storelk is a few kilometres south of the Highwood Pass on the southwest side of highway 40. Alan Kane must have searched diligently to find a scramble peak in this area, which is rather non-descript.

However, both the peak and access ridge are visible from highway 40 and after parking our cars in the ditch we set off on a westerly compass bearing through the woods just before 8.00am. The bushwacking is not dense and aided by various trails we soon gained the col, which led directly to Mt Storelk’s southeasterly ridge. After a short rest, during which we spotted a small herd of sheep, we donned helmets and started scrambling. Manfred selected a good route just to climber’s left of the ridge and aided by a few cairns, we all followed.

The scrambling was steep and since some rock fall was inevitable, we split naturally into 2 groups. Another faster party of 2 also split up with one fellow passing through our slower foursome but his buddy preferred to wait until we had cleared the worst cliffs. In must have been a bit frustrating for them to find our Rambler group of 7 ahead on such a remote peak, but unfortunately that happens sometimes.

As we gained the main south ridge we walked into a gusty wind, but this did not prevent us all gaining the summit by 11.30am for an early lunch.

The views were excellent and included Mt Storm and Mt Mist (no sign of Francisco), Mt Fox, Mt Sarrail and of course Mt Joffre. Despite the large cairn there was no register, so after a good lunch hour, we started back down the way we had come. In the meantime, the other 2 fellows had come and gone, probably wanting to get well below any shooting gallery before us.

Again we split naturally into the same 2 groups to avoid rock fall and regrouped at the col.

I found one short 3 metre cliff a little tricky to descend facing in on downward sloping holds. One wants dry conditions for this peak. We descended into the basin initially on a good trail but soon lost it and ended up on the road after some easy bushwacking about 100 metres south of our cars. It was 3.00pm, making the round trip 7 hours especially leisurely for the faster threesome. Not usually on the road this early on a weekend afternoon, we were surprised to see the Fortress gas station and other parking lots eg Galatea busy to overflowing. It also seemed to be a favourite day for Harley Davisons. Thanks to participants Gary ,Susan, Damian, Jeannine, John, Manfred from c&s David. The first four were also on Compression Ridge the day before.