New huts and Mt Jagungal

Cesjacks

O'Keefes

   

The following weekend (28 August) I met up with a few people from SPAN Outdoors for a backcountry ski trip. I got to see four huts on this trip I hadn’t seen before: Wallaces, Cesjacks, O’Keefes (new version) and Mackays. I’m slowly working my way through the Snowy Mountain Huts, and was lucky enough to see a few before they were lost in the bushfires of 2003. Dad took me to O’Keefes one summer when I was about 17, so I’d seen the original version, and it was great to see the replacement built in 2009. As a member of the Kosciuszko Huts Association, Dad was a proud member of the working party that rebuilt the hut. They did a great job, using recycled and aged materials and lining the hut with newspapers from the 1930’s. Unfortunately they didn’t finish covering the lining with plastic, so a lot of the papers are being damaged and you have to leave the door slightly open when the fire is lit to prevent asphyxiation from smoke (very authentic). Cesjacks was packed to the brim with a working party. There must have been about twenty people crowded into it cooking their dinner. A crowd always means a more social night! Mackeys is a little more isolated and so was quieter. I’d like to head back to it at some stage to explore the area between the hut and the Happy Jacks Plains. It was a big moment to ski to the top of Mt Jagungal. My father has asked that when he dies I throw his ashes from this majestic mountain at the northern end of Kosciuszko National Park. As one of the true areas of wilderness in the Snowy Mountains, I have to applaud his choice.

 



Mackeys

Wallaces at dawn (private)