Mt Awful

After sharing a bunk room with 8 school kids doing their gold Duke of Edinburgh award, I made an early start for the ascent over Gillespie pass. It began by tramping up this valley dominated by Mount Awful but despite its name looked fabulous in the early morning light. Further on is Mt Dreadful. Supposedly some guy was charged with the mission of naming mountains in the Aspiring park so he set off on a journey on horseback. The names at the start of his journey are all quite romantic and pleasant but as he got disenchanted on his venture the names he gave became progressively less so.
After that the real ascent began, of which the last 2000ft was a vertical scramble. I appreciate that it’s not an easy job creating pathways but the idea of a switchback seems to have eluded the maker of this one entirely. Between the steepness, the scrambling up rocks and the sheer magnitude of the scenery around me I started to get pretty freaked out. Every time I tried to stop and rest it seemed too vertical to relax and I would start to feel dizzy and sick. Had to dig deep to not completely panic, trying to keep four points of contact at all times and just make it to the next snow pole and then the next etc. Got to a flat bit just before the summit where I took a break and the Australian guy Cal from the hut caught up with me there. He stayed with me for the rest of the day, bless his cotton socket, thankfully the descent wasn’t as bad as I had been fearing, for the most part you could walk upright.
It went on a painfully long time though, and then another knee twisting tree root descent following that and finally to the most beautiful grassy flat valley/river section and along to Siberia hut. Kind of falling in love with these hiker huts.