Awesome Lava Stacks of Lord Howe Island: Mts Lidgbird (777 m) & Gower (875 m) separated by the saddle at the head of Erskine Valley
To climb Mt Gower (when conditions are dry and cool), you’ll need Dean Hiscox to help you ‘enjoy’ one of the hardest days of your life. I’m not joking. Even if you’re fit and experienced in rugged mountain terrain, you’ll still have a tough day. Savvy mountain guides call it ‘type two fun’, which means challenging at the time, but fun in hindsight. The climb from sea level to the summit is 875 vertical metres, but most of the climbing is rope supported on slopes between 40 and 65 degrees. The traverse across the Lower Road is arguably the most spectacular 400m of hiking in Australia, but don’t look under your toes – there’s lots of air between you and ocean far below. If you reach the summit (most likely in cloud), you’ll experience the Mt Gower cloud forest – an endemic forest community that’s more like temperate rainforest in Tasmania. It’s an amazingly delicate and beautiful ecosystem for such an unforgiving location. (Luke Hanson, A Local’s Guide to Lord Howe Island)
Awesome Lava Stacks of Lord Howe Island: Mts Lidgbird (777 m) & Gower (875 m) separated by the saddle at the head of Erskine Valley
To climb Mt Gower (when conditions are dry and cool), you’ll need Dean Hiscox to help you ‘enjoy’ one of the hardest days of your life. I’m not joking. Even if you’re fit and experienced in rugged mountain terrain, you’ll still have a tough day. Savvy mountain guides call it ‘type two fun’, which means challenging at the time, but fun in hindsight. The climb from sea level to the summit is 875 vertical metres, but most of the climbing is rope supported on slopes between 40 and 65 degrees. The traverse across the Lower Road is arguably the most spectacular 400m of hiking in Australia, but don’t look under your toes – there’s lots of air between you and ocean far below. If you reach the summit (most likely in cloud), you’ll experience the Mt Gower cloud forest – an endemic forest community that’s more like temperate rainforest in Tasmania. It’s an amazingly delicate and beautiful ecosystem for such an unforgiving location. (Luke Hanson, A Local’s Guide to Lord Howe Island)