Brown Mountain

Tuesday 26th May 2015

Brown Mountain

This is the Brown Mountain near Runnymede in the South East of Tasmania. To reach the walk start, drive out to Runnymede and turn into Woodsdale Road, and drive about 4.2 kms. to park beside the road.
I set off and jumped the gate across the access road where there was a sign stating that Quarry Operations were in progress and to Keep Out, basically. No quarry operations were happening, and had not for quite some time, I would say. The track was in excellent condition and gradually headed uphill. It was easy walking. Brown Mountain is in Levendale State Forest and once the forest was reached the track started to become a little steeper, but nothing hard. It appeared as there had been some controlled burn offs as much of the forest had been burnt.

Track through State Forest

After 4.3 kms. from the start I reached a cairn beside the track indicating where the summit track started. This was basically where the road reached its high point. A short scramble of about 300 metres over rocks took me to the summit.

Summit Track Marker

Summit Track

Looking up to the Summit

There were pretty good views from the summit, but I didn't stay too long as a cold breeze was blowing. As the walk to Brown Mountain is quite short, time wise, I had decided to walk to a hill with no name that was north west of Brown Mountain. I could see it from the summit and it looked promising.

From Brown Mountain Summit

Brown Mountain Summit Trig

From Brown Mountain Summit

From Brown Mountain Summit

No Name Hill

From Brown Mountain Summit

I walked back to the road and followed it around towards No Name Hill, and as I approached its base, I left the track and walked steeply uphill over rocks to reach the summit. There were several flat areas of rock up here and it was quite pleasant. There were some views but others were restricted by trees.

No Name Hill Summit

From No Name Hill

Brown Mountain from No Name Hill

Rocky Cliffs over towards Brown Mountain

From No Name Hill

From No Name Hill

 After scrambling down from the summit I followed the track back to the base of Brown Mountain and branched off on a track on the northern side of the mount. This went downhill, steeply in places, to eventually meet the outward leg. This turned out to be a good move in the end, as it was shorter and provided some variation. I would much rather do a circuit walk than an out and back the same way walk.
In the end this turned out to be quite a good walk, and fairly easy as well, as most of it was on good track with just a couple of short scrambles to the summits.
Distance: 14.1 kms.
Time: 4'37"
Ascent: 760 metres
Click here to download GPX file.