As part of Team Vodka’s Kokoda Challenge training program, we embarked on a hike up Mount Tibrogargan. Team Vodka (The Bruiser, The Giggler, The Grasshopper and Nice) met Team Faz (The Teacher, his brother Ben and two Canadian teachers) on their descent. Team Faz had left Brisbane by 6am and had a 2 hour head start.

The rendezvous of the teams occurred at the rock gateway. The gateway is the chicken gate for some tourists who discover the trail suddenly turns from a dirt path to a rocky cliff and then a long slab. We exchanged a few quick words in which The Teacher said it would take us an hour to summit.

Team Vodka reluctantly soloed up the rock gateway. The most technical part of the ascent had past, however, the start of the rock slab and the path upwards presented the team with a new challenge. Rock climbing skills came in handy as we scrambled up the slab.

The climbateers knew the challenge of the slab ascent was only half the battle. They were dreading the downclimb. The scramble was a more of an unroped rock climbing ascent with a steepness of around 60 degrees (maybe more)!

After 40 minutes we had reached the end of the slab and the start of the summit trail. The summit trail is via a natural gully filled with loose stones, but the steepness tapered off. We summited Tibrogargan in 50 minutes and rested on the rocky summit overhang admiring the views. The Giggler rang her uncle and aunt’s farm that was directly below the mountain.

It was now time to start our descent. The downclimb was done by a mixture of walking straight down and climbing backwards when the steepness required more use of the hands and upper body balance. Nice took the lead and set a good pace. We soon reached near the bottom of the slab where it was the steepest and the gateway was just below.

I lead the way down and Nice followed easily. The Giggler was next but soon found herself in an awkward position. Bouts of nervous laughter erupted and dirty words were yelled. I yelled back "Pineapples! Pineapples!" and a young family nearby started laughing too. The Giggler soon realised we were not alone and replaced the words with "Pineapples". Nice and I came to The Giggler’s aid and guided her feet down to some better placements until she got to the ledge. For once the Giggler was relieved to be on a ledge. The Bruiser also had some difficulty but the same guidance helped her off the cliff too.

The gateway descent was downclimbed with some guidance but with more confidence. Team Vodka rested briefly before taking the trail out of the park. We had successfully hiked Mount Tibrogargan, summiting it within 50 minutes and descending within 1 hour.

On the way back we stopped in at the Giggler’s farm where we took close up pics of Tibro and saw a party of three doing the East Face Caves route. 

Photo gallery of the hike: Picasaweb: MtTibrogargan