Mt Sorrow

Mt Sorrow seen from the intersection of Camelot Close and Nicole Drive

I've been living on the lower slopes of Mount Sorrow for nearly four months. Despite being in its shadow, and looking up every day at it, or at least its near constant cloud cover, I only made my first attempt to climb it yesterday. I started getting more interested in Mt Sorrow a couple of weeks ago when I started hearing rumours of a big slip from one of the ridges down on the other side of the valley from the Rainforest Hideaway.

Strangler Fig tangling across the track

Once Mt Sorrow was more prominent in my consciousness, the weather became drier and I found myself craving more in-depth rainforest immersion, I began planning how I would tackle it. Its a difficult steep climb, not for the faint-hearted or unfit and can be dangerous is bad conditions. I went alone so I could go as slowly as I needed to, without getting pulled along with anyone else's greater goal orientation.

I had a lovely time once I was on my way, as I didn't bother pushing myself to go fast or very far, and turned back after 2 1/2 hours as planned, even though I was only about 2/3 of the way up. The highest point I got to happened to offer a rare glimpse of the view beyond the dense canopy. With my binoculars I looked down on the tiny settlement of Cape Tribulation, and even recognised a couple of the cabins at the Cape Tribulation Farmstay. So I did better than the other walkers I met on the track who got to the lookout at the top and couldn't see anything because of the heavy cloud cover.

Taking lots of photos was a good excuse for frequent stops, but in the dim light (and with the shakes from hard climbing) only two of my pictures came out any good. Still, for those who will never even get to attempt a climb of Mt Sorrow, these will have to do you.

Ruffly fungi covering several fallen logs like a collapsed wedding dress. Each ruffle is about as big as my thumb.