Back in December 2015, my son Thomas who was seventeen at the time, and I undertook a four-day hike in the Jagungal Wilderness area in the Northern Kosciusko area of NSW. One of our aims was to climb Mount Jagungal, but through some poor planning on my part, we missed that goal. I wrote an article in Tandanya at the time about the trip and you can read that here.

Ten years on and my son is now twenty-seven and I’m nearing sixty with chronic tendonitis in my hip. Nevertheless, we decided we needed to complete this unfinished business – climbing Mount Jagungal. We were heading to Sydney to spend time with family over Christmas and thought this would provide a good opportunity to revisit the area. 

This time we planned a bit more carefully, and decided to do an ‘in and out’ route, rather than the circuit that we did ten years earlier. The weather forecast this time was mixed with mild clear weather forecast one day, and rain with estimates of up to 70 mm and strong winds the next day. This made me a bit nervous, but decided to push ahead as we had the appropriate gear, and would be largely sticking to established paths.

Tom volunteered to carry the bulk of the gear, allowing me to limit my pack weight to twelve kilograms, while Tom had around twenty. This certainly helped me manage my bad hip.

Similar to our trip in 2015, we planned to camp near refuge huts, which are common in the Kosciusko area. Many of these huts had been destroyed in the bushfires of 2019 and the Kosciusko Huts Association have been progressively rebuilding them.

Getting there

On 19^th December 2025, we drove to Narrandera in the NSW Riverina area, which is a ten-hour slog from Adelaide across the Hay plain. The next morning, we drove the four hours to the Round Mountain Carpark on Tooma Rd, which is where we started the walk. This part of the drive was beautiful and took us along the southern edge of the River Murray in Victoria, and then along the winding and scenic roads of the Kosciusko National Park. The impacts of the 2019 bushfires still dominate the landscape, with vast areas of burnt vegetation.

Day 1 – Round Mountain Car Park to Derschkos Hut

It’s a thirteen kilometre walk from the car park to Derschkos Hut along the Round Mountain trail. The walk is easy with some undulations. The views are excellent, and Mount Jagungal is always visible, dominating the landscape. We arrived at the hut at about 2pm and there were a couple of people from Canberra resting in the hut, who had just completed the Mount Jagungal climb that morning. One of the Canberrans said that on a fine day you can see the Kosciusko Main Range from the summit, and hoped the weather would be in our favour. We pitched our tents nearby the hut.

That afternoon, Tom and I decided to do a reconnaissance walk to locate the start of the foot pad that leads to the summit of Mount Jagungal. From Derschkos Hut, it was a 2km fairly easy walk south along the Round Mountain and Grey Mare trails to the upper reaches of the Tumut River. This is where the path to climb Mount Jagungal begins.

We returned back to the hut and shared some good bushwalking stories with our Canberra friends, had our dinner and retired to our tents at about 9pm when it got dark.

Day 2 – Mount Jagungal Summit to Round Mountain Hut

That morning, we woke early packed up our gear and said goodbye to our Canberra friends. We prepared a day pack for the climb up Mount Jagungal and left our main packs in the hut for our return. We estimated that it would be a 7km, four hour round trip from Derschkos Hut to the summit of Mount Jagungal. The weather forecast was for rain and increasing winds from about 1pm, so we were keen to get underway and off the mountain before the weather deteriorated too much.

We got to the Tumut River at about 9am and headed up the foot pad to the summit. The track was fairly easy to follow, but did require some level of concentration and awareness to stay on it. The first few hundred metres was through boggy ground, and I was glad to have my water proof boots and gaiters. The next section was quite steep and a bit slippery. There were significant sections of alpine heath which were chest and sometimes head high. 

As the path increased in elevation it became flatter and the landscape opened up to areas of snow grass, which was beautiful. We also discovered that this alpine area is home to fairly large blue worms, the likes I have never seen before. A quick search on the internet, suggests the worm is known as the Blue Planarian Flatworm (Caenoplana coerulea).

By this stage the weather was closing in, with low cloud restricting our visibility and winds increasing. The last hundred metres were a bit of a rock scramble to the summit, marked by a concrete structure, which previously had some kind of tripod trig station on it, that appears to have blown off. 

Although we had no mountain views and the wind was fierce, Tom and I were both elated to have reached Mount Jagungal summit. This had been ten years in the making!!

We began making our way down the mountain and by this stage the rain had started, and we took extra care to avoid slipping and risking injury. We arrived back at Derschkos Hut to collect our packs and have lunch. There was a party of four who had arrived at the hut soon after our return and were planning to climb the mountain the following day. 

After lunch we decided to walk to the Round Mountain Hut where we would camp that night. The hut is only a couple of kilometres from the Round Mountain car park, and we largely retraced our steps from the first day. This hut had been destroyed in the fires of 2019, but had recently been rebuilt.

As we walked the twelve kilometres to the Round Mountain Hut, the rain became heavier and heavier. We were prepared with good wet weather gear, so no real problems, but I was looking forward to getting to the hut. We arrived at the hut at about 4:30pm. The rain got heavier and the wind got stronger. I decided to sleep in the hut, and Tom decided to pitch his tent despite the bad weather ostensibly to avoid my snoring!!

At that stage I thought the weather would subside, but all it did was become more intense now with thunder and lightning. Between 7pm and 9pm that evening, there was 50mm of rain and the average wind speed was 65 km per hour. It was a wild evening and I was surprised that Tom stuck it out in the tent… and stayed dry. By around mid-night the weather had cleared and the winds stopped, leaving some beautiful clear skies.

Day 3 – Back to Round Mountain Car Park

We woke fairly early to a beautiful day and packed up our gear for the 2km walk back to the car. From there we drove to Canberra and then onto Sydney to enjoy Christmas with family.

I am very grateful to my son Thomas, who made it possible for me to finally climb Mount Jagungal after all these years. I could not have done it without him. My next challenge will be to climb Mount Jagungal on a fine day to get those iconic views. Hopefully before 2035!