Mount Clunie

Mount Clunie from the QLD-NSW border fence

It's almost impossible to exaggerate how steep this walk is.

Like the walk up nearby Wilson's Peak, Mount Clunie is climbed via the QLD-NSW border fence. For this walk the easiest option seemed to be walking on the southern side.

After winding up and down over several knolls the fence suddenly takes an absurdly steep climb up through open forest into the higher, rainforested slopes. I've climbed plenty of steep routes in the area but this was by far the steepest. It wasn't made any easier by the narrow patch of crumbly dirt available for walking on between the barbed wire fence on the left and the thick, overgrown weedy bush interspersed with various stinging plants on the right.

The initial, incredibly steep climb is probably less than a hundred metres but it still took 10 minutes to slog through.

It's even steeper than it looks

There is still another 40 min of very steep climbing from here through rainforest to the summit. Near the very top, a section of the fence is unnavigable due to storm damage and requires a fairly large detour to skirt around fallen trees and nasty patches of stinging plants.

Once on top I spent an hour exploring the summit ridge that runs south-west from the rabbit fence, searching for Clunie's elusive views. Unfortunately I was running short of time and had to abandon the ridge walk before finding anything that looked like 'great views.' However, the rainforest here was very pretty and made the detour worthwhile.

Sun's almost down... time to get off this mountain

I had to settle for glimpses of mountains through the foliage on the way down, moving quickly to avoid the highly unenviable task of descending the stupidly steep section in the dark.

Sunset over Mount Moon