Walls of Jerusalem – Day 2B – Mt Jerusalem

After lunch we decided to walk up Mt Jerusalem, which is about 2km and 200 vertical metres from Dixon’s Kingdom. Its north-western face is known as the East Wall, since it sort of marks the eastern end of the actual Walls of Jerusalem area.

The clouds and moon were having an interesting interaction on the way up, and I am now a convert to the use of polarizing filter which enriches the blues and greens and can reduce the extent of glare and reflections on the tarns … although I need to devise a way of quickly setting it correctly.

There are numerous little lakes on the way up; I just love the way they sit in the landscape among the dolerite.

Once on the summit we had a grand view over the Vale of Bethesda to our north, and then the vast glaciated tarn-riddled plain to the south. It was a clear enough day that we think we were able to see the concrete communication tower on Mt Wellington, 140km away.

The summit’s altitude was sufficient to get mobile reception, and I confess that a selfie was posted to Facebook and a few SMSs were taken care of … although I didn’t attend to my emails (I deliberately chose to let them await my return to “civilization”).

As is typical of my bushwalks I had taken my tripod (although, to be accurate, my brother David actually carried it up Mt Jerusalem), but I ended up just balancing my camera on my hat on top of a rock in order to take the group portrait. For the first shot, I needed 10.5 seconds to get into position, which was just a fraction of a second too long for the 10 second self-timer! The second one was more successful, although it required a couple of hasty knee-jarring leaps. (Of course, I’m sure we could have asked someone else to take the picture, since we were not the only ones who’d made it to the summit at the time!!)

The other distinctive view was off to the west, a view which we continued to enjoy on our way back down: the extensive series of mountain peaks that run along the Overland Track between Cradle Mountain and Lake St Clair, about 20km away.

The downhill return was relatively easy, and it was nice to reach the sanctuary of Dixon’s Kingdom again.

(Photos of Helen in the panorama and Helen holding her hat were taken by David.)