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| Left: A view from a spot on the Mount Climie Steep Route. Right: The steep route junction on Tane's Track. |
Muddy Boots
Here lies the junction on the Tane Loop Track and the turnoff to Mount Climie via the ‘steep route’. We’ve been wanting to place a cache at this spot for a while now, but it simply hasn’t been priority until the recent archival of “Top Views” provided an opportunity to find the subsequent newly placed caches up the Mount Climie track. This cache gets its namesake from the track condition of the ‘Mount Climie Steep Route’, which starts from the well-graded and surfaced Tane’s Track loop walk (the junction), and ascends up to the main 4WD Mount Climie track. It isn’t a particularly long walk, 10 minutes down / 20 minutes up, nor is it used frequently as it has suffered badly from snow damage in the past and the track isn’t maintained as often as others in the area. There are overgrowths of weeds in some places as large trees have fallen, letting light through, and there’s a general tendency to be snagged by vines and branches growing across the track as you walk along.
Closer to the Tane’s Track end, there’s an extended section of deep, slightly odorous mud which either requires careful walking along branches which have fallen into the diatomaceous-like ooze, or plowing straight through – thus, “Muddy Boots”. It might be drier in the summer, but when we placed the cache we had to spend a minute or two negotiating it. Mountain bikes are not permitted, but we wouldn’t see why someone would bother biking this track in the first place.
Cache Details & Access Information
The container is a black camouflage 1L Sistema which when placed contained a logbook, logbag, geocaching notice, pencil, and a prize for the FTF. Reception wasn’t perfect at GZ (+- 10m), so we spent 4 minutes averaging our marked waypoint in an attempt to hopefully make the final coordinates a bit more accurate.
The cache is accessed easily from Tane’s Track, it’s only a short walk from the carpark. While you’re here, you can also quickly grab the final for “Fernacular” (GC2RBEJ) which rests at an undisclosed location nearby, if you haven’t done so already. If you’re completing the walk to Mount Climie, it’s not worth the effort to waste your energy ascending via the Mount Climie Steep Route, instead, it’s probably best to leave it for the return leg of your trip.
Enjoy.