Cathedral Plateau – two days of snow, no views and a VERY VERY lost walker

After my first solo trip up here to get a view I made another attempt with one of my walking buddies Shane. He was pretty keen to see the views as well, maybe second time lucky for me. Some great weather forecast initially, deteriorating as the weekend progressed. We hoped to get a view Saturday and see what Sunday served up. Leaving early we reached the highest point of the Moses Creek track by 10AM and quickly descended down to Chapter Lake and Grail Falls. The falls had high flow and a good display today, best I have seen. It was reasonably cold with some gloves and beanie coming in handy. We got over the creek and started the climb up the cliff above Grail, it was very slippery today. Some light rain hit us here briefly. We had to take the alternate log crossing to get across the outlet creek that becomes Grail Falls, somebody had stacked a few extra logs since my last trip. We then navigated around Chalice lake following the cairns and had a bit of difficulty at the end crossing as the lake was very full.

We crossed over the rocky rise and down to find a safe place to cross the creek through the pines. Once we had that done with and through the scrub up onto the next rocky ridge we followed the compass bearing directly to the eastern side of Tent Tan. As it was not raining we setup camp in case it was bad when we returned. It was the same campsite I used on my last visit under the native pine. Around 14:30 we left for Cathedral and Twin Spires and noticed another group just getting back camped on the other side of the tarn. They had good weather and views I think.

By 15:30 it was snowing lightly as we ascended the ridge but we pushed on to the first high point. The cloud was low and any view looked like an impossibility. we got in behind the high point and I pointed out to Shane where everything was in the white cloud. After I looked down at my day pack and it was almost covered in snow we called it quits and hoped for a better day tomorrow. We took an extended route back down the ridge and wandered around a bit arriving back at camp with snow still falling around 18:30. We got some tea happening and had an early night.

Very early Sunday morning I woke and stuck my head out of the tent and took some photo's of the white tent and surrounds and got back into bed as it was not looking promising today either. Before 9AM we rose and had some breakfast during a break in the snow. We decided to do another trip up to the high point and see what happened, we had time to kill anyway. We headed up and got a bit more snow on the way up for a short time. The cloud was low and so were expectations. At the high point we hung around for ages as the cloud would tease us with very short glimpses of Cathedral. It was not to be and Shane eventually moved me on and we returned to camp and packed up. 

The return trip was uneventful and once we reached the ridge at the end of Chalice Lake we stopped for some lunch around 13:00. Once we got back to the slabs above Grail Falls we stopped again and got some phone coverage so we sat in the sun and read a few messages before the final leg back down the Moses Creek track to the car. The trip down was very quick and we headed back to Launceston but the trip was not over yet.

Just past the Juno Creek track to lake Louisa heading down towards the next bridge a lot of wallaby were jumping across the road. I joked how they had forgotten it was the start of daylight savings today. As we passed that spot a bush walker emerged next to the bridge out of the scrub from nowhere. He waved at us in a funny sort of way and we stopped to see what the hell he was up to. It transpires he got lost on the Lake Adelaide track and ended up here some how. That would have been a terrible trip down their and he was showing the scars of it. Anyway he was a lucky boy as he had no idea where he presently was or what direction to go. We gave him a lift back to the Walls of Jerusalem car park (7Km) and some friendly advice and went on our way. A very surprising end to an interesting trip.