The Overland Track in winter: a trail guide

The shuttle from Launceston was meant to drop us at Ronny Creek around 6 am, but black ice had closed the road beyond the information centre. We walked the extra kilometre or so to the trailhead in the half-dark, boots crunching on frozen gravel. It was a rough start, but it also meant I met the group I would walk with for the rest of the trip: three friends and two of their sons, all of them faster and funnier than I had any right to hike with.

I had worried about deep Tasmanian winter snow. Stories of walkers post-holing for days had filled my head, but the cover was light and beautiful, more like a hard frost than an alpine blizzard. A little rain and snow fell in the first hour, then the sky cleared. We stopped at the Overland Track signpost for the obligatory photo, then climbed past Crater Lake and up the chained pitch to Marions Lookout.

Beyond Kitchen Hut the track crosses the open plateau and drops into Waterfall Valley. We arrived at the hut in the late afternoon, around 4 or 5 pm, with enough time to make a proper dinner and settle in before the temperature dropped. The hut was empty except for our group. I made coffee on the bench and watched the light fade off Barn Bluff.

I slept better than expected and woke up feeling fresh. That lasted about ten minutes. The track out of Waterfall Valley was sheet ice in patches, and before I had properly woken up I slipped, landed hard on my knee, and spent the next few minutes sitting in the snow waiting for the pain to tell me how bad it was.

It was bad enough that my first thought was the Garmin inReach Mini 2 in my pack and whether this was the helicopter moment. After a rest, a check of the joint, and some very careful walking, it seemed stable. I decided to push on slowly. The knee swelled over the next two days, but it held. I was lucky: the fall missed my patella and did no real structural damage.

We stopped for lunch beside a half-frozen lake with Barn Bluff rising behind it, then continued on to Lake Windermere Hut. That afternoon, with the knee throbbing and the day still clear, I waded into the lake. It was July in Tasmania, so "swim" is a generous word: more of a gasp, a float, and a rapid exit. But the cold took the swelling down better than anything in my first-aid kit, and the reset was worth the shock.

I gave myself a rest morning at Windermere. The lake was perfectly still at dawn, and Barn Bluff was reflected in the dark water with a clarity that made the early start feel easy. I took more photos than I needed, then packed up and left with the group in mid-morning.

The longest day of the standard route, but not the hardest. The track runs south across open moor, drops through myrtle-beech rainforest to Frog Flats, the lowest point on the whole walk, and then climbs gently back to Pelion Plains. Mount Oakleigh's dolerite organ pipes come into view long before you reach the hut, and they dominated the evening light.

This was the day I built the trip around. I left New Pelion before dawn to climb Mount Oakleigh for sunrise, reaching the summit while the light was still thin and pink. There was enough phone reception at the top for one brief call, and I used it to call Jess, my then-girlfriend and now wife. It felt like a small miracle, a private conversation from the top of a mountain in the middle of Tasmania.

By the time I got back to the hut the group was ready to move. We packed up, climbed through rainforest to Pelion Gap, and dropped down to Kia Ora Hut in the early afternoon. The gap itself is a wind-scoured saddle between Mount Ossa and Mount Pelion East, and the junction signposts point off in three directions: up, up, and down.

It was my birthday, and I did not remember until I got back to the hut. I spent the morning on a double side-quest: Mount Ossa first, then Mount Pelion East, returning to Kia Ora for lunch and a rest before pushing on. That is only possible if you are staying at Kia Ora a second night, which I was: it made the day feel generous rather than rushed.

Mount Ossa is the reason many people walk the Overland. It is Tasmania's highest summit at 1,617 metres, and on a clear day the view takes in most of the park's named peaks. The route from Pelion Gap climbs through a scree gully and finishes on exposed boulders; under snow the rock is slick, and the drop on either side is real. Mount Pelion East is shorter and quieter, a good second summit if the legs are willing.

After lunch we packed up and walked the waterfall section of the main track: past Du Cane Hut and the short detours to D'Alton, Fergusson and Hartnett Falls, then over Du Cane Gap and down to Bert Nichols Hut. The falls were running hard after winter rain, and the forest was thick with mist.

The last morning was easy walking through forest to Narcissus Hut. I had planned to walk the full lakeshore track to Cynthia Bay, but the group was taking the ferry and I decided to join them. The lakeshore route is reputedly muddy and less well maintained, and after eight days and a bruised knee, the ferry was the smarter finish. It also gave us time to make the shuttle back to Launceston and find a proper meal.

We landed back in Launceston in the early evening, dirty and tired, and went straight to a restaurant for the kind of meal that only tastes that good at the end of a long walk. I cannot remember what I ordered; I remember the relief.