Australian Mountain Peaks
Cache Name: AMP015 – Frenchmans Cap
Peak ID: 15
Elevation: 1446m
State: TAS
Location: Franklin-Gordon Wild Rivers National Park, Tasmania
Prominent Parent: Mount Ossa
Coordinates: 42°16′12″S 145°49′12″E
Cache Size: 2 Litre plastic container
The Frenchmans Cap is a mountain in the West Coast region of Tasmania, Australia. The mountain is situated in the Franklin-Gordon Wild Rivers National Park. The mountain lies east of the West Coast Range, yet due to its prominence, it can be seen from Macquarie Harbour. It lies south of the Lyell Highway from which it can be viewed from various locations, and southwest of Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park.
The peaks of the Frenchmans area include Frenchmans Cap, Clytemnestra and Philps Peak (both 1,280 metres), and Philps Ridge (1,200 metres). The distinctive shape of the mountain was used as a guiding beacon by many, largely unsuccessful, parties of escaping convicts as they attempted to struggle through the dense scrub of Western Tasmania to the settled districts further east.
The earliest European recorded to have ascended was James Sprent and his trigonometrical party in 1853. In 1941 the Frenchmans Cap National Park was created and its boundary was in effect the Franklin River. This park was subsumed into the Franklin-Gordon Wild Rivers National Park in the 1990s.