Tasmania Treks Part 2: Frenchmans Cap 

Thanks Naomi! Glad you liked the soundtrack as well. Thanks for watching!

Thanks Andrew. It's a tough but very rewarding hike. One of my favourites I've ever done. Interesting you mention the Lake Oberon hike as I'm planning to do that one next year so any tips about that hike would be welcome! Thanks for watching.

@@FreedomOnFoot Some people go from the car park to Lake Cygnus in one big push if you start the day early. Wife and I went in at lunch time and stopped at Junction Creek. Next day we did the big push up moraine A and this is tough, steep and long. By the time we did this we decided to camp up the top of moraine A and just take our time the next day to Cygnus. We used Cygnus as our base camp and day packed to Oberon and back to Cygnus the following day. If we did the hike again we would make square lake our base camp mine you no toilet there. This way you can get great photos of Oberon in better light and maybe Astro shots from the mountain that looks down into Oberon. As usual the golden rule go as light as you can. The climb down into Oberon is sketchy and not something you want to do over and over if you want Oberon in great light conditions and climb in the dark. If I was going to tackle the whole range I would have to go a lot lighter as parts of that are insane.

@@andrewiverach659 this is great advice. Thanks for sharing that. I thought this would be a good way to get a taste of the Western Arthurs and see whether I would want to take on the whole range as it strikes me as being one of the craziest hikes in Australia in terms of degree of difficulty.

Thanks very much, David! Great to hear you will be doing Frenchmans Cap later this year. The scenery is honestly mind-blowing, from the incredible forests through to the dramatic mountain ranges and, of course, Frenchmans Cap itself! There is plenty of water both at campsites and also along the way from natural sources. The maximum I normally carried at the start of a day was 3L but you could get away with 2L for sure. The terrain is definitely tough going but I did the whole hike in my Altra trail runners and they were perfect for the job (and light on my feet!). I would recommend good gaiters on this trail to help protect your lower legs from any low scrub. I would love to do this hike again, even knowing how tough it is. It's up there with my favourite hikes. I'm sure you will love it!

Thanks Chris much appreciated. I admit I see a lot of videos talking about the benefits of trail runners but have 35years of experience in boots and am finding it hard to transition. Your advice and videos and reviews have convinced me to try them out. Here goes

@@davidbarnes3591 great to hear you're going to give them a try. I'm certainly not saying they're for everyone but they've definitely been working for me and I can't think of many types of hikes where I would choose to use boots anymore over trail runners. Will be interested to hear which shoes you end up going for.

Thanks very much! The views certainly make it easy to capture great footage there. Hope you get to do Frenchmans Cap one day as well. Highly recommend it!

No question it was a pretty hardcore hike that one. The scenery well and truly balances out the physical demands of walking through it though. I was just in awe of the landscape. Ridiculously good luck with the weather. Still can't believe we had such a long run of fine days and didn't once have to pull out the wet weather gear. I'm convinced Tassie was feeling guilty for the shocking weather it delivered for me two years ago on the Overland Track and was making it up to me. 😂

@@FreedomOnFoot 😂 that was probably it!

Thanks mate, appreciate you saying that. My pack actually only had a few essentials in it for the summit walk as we left most of our gear on our bunks at Tahune Hut. I didn't bring a soft day pack on this trip as it's just easier to carry my camera gear and also be able to stow my trekking poles with my main pack. I opted not to take the Altaplex on this trip mainly because I thought we were going to be setting up on tent platforms and trekking pole tents can be a pain on those. As it turns out we didn't use any platforms in the end but I also didn't have to carry it the whole time as we base camped at Pine Valley for three of the nights.

@@FreedomOnFoot Carrying that extra camera equipment certainly shows. I use larger Bunnings cup hooks with the white plastic. ( easier to screw in ) They work great on tent platforms with the Duplex.

@@magpiecollingwood9116that's a great tip! Will have to keep that one in mind.

Thanks Nurisha! Always enjoy putting these trip videos together and sharing them.

Thanks Jake! Hope you can fit it in to your upcoming Tassie trip. The hike can be done in three days but it means some massive days. I'm glad we allowed four days to complete it as the terrain is hardcore and slow going on a number of sections due to the elevation changes.

Thanks so much, Eva!