Today, with the assistance of Anand and James, I journeyed into Australia's 'alps' to place the highest geocache in Australia. It is now described at http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.asp?ID=247 . Here is some of what we saw.
At the bottom of this page is a set of spoilers for those who wish to go looking for the cache. Ideally, geocaching is done knowing nothing more than the latitude and longitude of the cache's location, and perhaps a short physical description of the cache itself. This particular cache is so remote and so time-consuming to reach that some seekers may prefer to have more information about how to find it before they go. (Update: It does seem that remoteness has been a limiting factor for this cache. It sat undisturbed for just under ten months before Mark England and friends made a successful attempt to locate it in September 2001.)
Illawong, our home for the weekend.
James's camera also saw extensive use on this trip. The mountain to his right is Mount Blue Cow.
These were taken over a period of a few hours as we climbed.
The cache itself was assembled rather quickly, the decision to definitely create it having been made a few minutes prior to commencing the weekend's hasty grocery shopping in Jindabyne at a supermarket that was just about to close. Some time after placing the cache, it occurred to me that placing fluids in this area may not have been too smart; during spring and autumn they will be subjected to a continual freeze/thaw cycle as night/day temperatures cycle around zero. (Update: Fortunately, they survived the autumn and spring that elapsed before Mark and co. visited. They replaced the fluids with something more stable.)
Taken some hours later on the way back down.
Finally, from just outside Illawong, the post-sunset horizon, which really was about this colour.
Stop reading right now if you wish to avoid serious spoilers.
Really.
Here is the cache as it was left. If my guess about the direction of snow creep is correct, it will remain in place through the thaw.
About halfway between Mt. Twynam and Mt. Anton there is a large lump (technical term?). A saddle runs northish from Mt. Twynam to the lump. The cache was placed near the west 'end' of this lump. The lump is unnamed and its top and bottom fit neatly between the heights used for the map's contours, so it does not appear on the map. Fortuately the map does show a parish boundary with an X at almost exactly the location of the lump.
To provide context shots, I placed the cache temporarily atop the rock that it was later stashed under. These photos are looking over the cache _TOWARDS_ the east (James is standing almost on top of the lump), south, west and north respectively (Anand moved between photos) _FROM_ the west, north, east and south sides of the cache, respectively.
Happy hunting!