Ascent of Rams Head North on 2015-03-17| Others in Party: | my sons
John and
Geoffrey Sarna -- Trip Report or GPS Track
----Only Party on Mountain | | Date: | Tuesday, March 17, 2015 | | Ascent Type: | Successful Summit Attained | | Motorized Transport to Summit: | Ski Lift | | Motorized Transport to Trailhead: | Car | | Peak: | Rams Head North | | Location: | Australia-New South Wales | | Elevation: | 7146 ft / 2178 m |
Ascent Trip ReportRams Head is one of many large granite protrusions to the left of the trail up Kozzie (Mount Kosciuszko). It was one of the couple nearby highpoints that I marked on my GPS in case we had the energy and the time to climb one after bagging Kozzie. The predicted afternoon rain had not materialized, the cloud cover was still high, the wind not as strong as what we faced in the morning getting up Kozzie, and one of my sons wanted to climb the scenic granite outcrops we saw high up to the left of the trail coming up Kossie. Hence, I set the GPS to aim for Rams Head, telling my sons we'd just check it out, noting that we might not make the top since we didn't bring ropes and pro with us. When it came in sight, it didn't look promising from the trail side, appearing to be class 4 or 5, so I said we could get up to see if there's an easier way from the back, but no guarantees. My son said we could climb it in any case, so we had a discussion about not climbing exposed rock without ropes. This discussion continued as we walked over the low brush, and rocky ground avoiding the mucky pools formed by the striated water flowing from above until we got to the base of the granite outcrop that was Rams Head. I still did not see an unexposed way over what appeared to be the top boulder, but we continued on unexposed class 3 until we saw a higher point that looked doable without exposure. Once on top, of course, we could see an easier route up with only a few class 3 moves, i.e., it's best to go around the left side of the peak from the trail. To my son's chagrin, we took this way down, with him jumping from the boulders onto the vegetation. Due to the difficult walking, it was easier to head straight for the Mount Kozzie trail than try to cut off any distance by aiming further down it. The GPS track shows the route from the top of Kozzie to this peak and on down the chairlift to Threadbo Sports (where you can buy chairlift tickets to avoid hiking out of Threadbo in the deep canyon below).
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