The Mt Howitt and Crosscut Saw area of the Alpine has always been one of my favourite places. Its amazing to look at from afar when your on Stirling or Buller and its even better when you there on top of it. The only time I had been here previous, I came in a 4WD from the Howqua River area up to the King Billys and then hiked out to Mt Speculation and back in three days with some friends. This time I was planning to come in from the southern side via Licola and the Howitt Rd, which I have never done before. Actually that’s a lie because when I was about 12 I went to Lake Tarli Karn which, starts at the end of the sealed section of the Tamboritha Rd, about 25kms after Licola. That left about 60km of dirt road that I had never been on before. I also wanted to come this way so I could tick Mount Reynard off, which is half way along the Howitt rd.
I have to admit it was a way longer drive than I had thought. 5 hours it took from my home in Southbank Melbourne to the parking lot where the trail starts to Macalister Springs. Its funny on the way in all I could think about was getting there, which was a real shame, because it wasn’t till the drive out did I realise, that it was such a beautiful drive and some incredible mountains and scenery around me. The quickest and most direct way is to take the Monash or M1 our through Warragul, past Moe and to Traralgon. There turn left (North) onto the C105 and head towards Heyfield. You will pass Glengarry and Toongabbie, then just before you hit Cowwarr, you take a left again heading due north along the Cowwarr-Seaton Rd which then becomes Seymours Ln when it crosses (doglegs over) the Heyfield-Seaton Rd and then finally turns into the Glenmaggie Rd as you follow the signs to Glenmaggie. Just before you reach Glenmaggie though you turn left again heading towards Licola on the C486. For the next 40kms you follow the Macalister River through gorges, mountain passes and river valleys along a very windy road, that gets more breathtaking the further you go. When you arrive in Licola, to get to the town you must turn left and cross the river. This road continues to Jamieson. There is a nice little rest stop and public toilets with a general store that is open everyday except Tuesday. Guess what day I was there? Lol, I was hoping to by a map of the Reynard area, but that didn’t happen hehe. To get to Macalister Springs you need to head back across the bridge and take a left. This road now becomes the Tamboritha Rd and heads uphill on sealed road for just over 20kms. It passes many campsites and then as it crosses the Wellington river where the Lake Tarli Karn Hike starts and turns into a gravel road and continues up and up. The Howitt Rd and Howitt plains sit well above 1500m and higher. Its a good gravel road and easily travelled on by 2wds. At about 40 and a bit km’s you come to a ‘Y’ intersection called Arbuckle Junction. I took a left and travelled on Howitt road for another 40+kms, past Mt Reynard, the Alpine Airport (yes there is an airport of sorts up here lol), and Howitt hut, till I arrived at the car park of the Mount Howitt Walking Tk. The right road becomes the Moroka Road and head out into the Wonnangatta/Moroka area of the Alpine NP, and an area I now want to go explore. After 82km since leaving Licola (mostly on dirt road) I arrived at the car park, roughly around 3.30pm. As I packed my bags and got ready to leave I realised I had forgotten my torch (STUPID!). So doing the math I realised I would be setting up camp in the dark and trying to cook without a light, grrrrr. So I figured I was better of camping at the car where I can light a fire and use the lights of the car which, is what I did.
It was a cold windy night, not that I really noticed it being in a car lol, but with an extra 5 kms to walk today because I didn’t do it last night I knew I had to catch up. So up with the sun, and was hiking by 7.30am. It was still quite chilly, as there were no clouds, but the sun warmed things up when you were in it. The 5km walk took about 55mins to Macalister Springs. I dumped my Big pack in the hut, repacked my day pack and cooked up some oats to eat before heading off. While eating a school group appeared out of no where to fill up at the spring. They had been camping just up the hill and where heading to Lovick’s Hut today, so we would cross paths again. The teacher came up and said hello and have a quick chat. They were from Timbertop School (GGS). They left about 30mins before me and headed out towards Howitt while, I cleaned up my breakfast. I caught them on the way up to Howitt and they very politely all said hello and let me pass. I had switched to a day pack, and they where all carrying multi day packs, so I was carrying a lot less. I made it to the summit in about 30mins from the hut and then continued over to the West Peak. Some really beautiful views of Magdala, the Bluff and Buller from here as well as being very windy. There used to be a trail from the west peak that joined onto the AAWT towards Magdala, but I couldn’t find it. So I headed back towards Howitt, then cut across and joined up to the main trail and the school group I had passed earlier.
The great thing about climbing several peaks is that after all the effort of climbing the first you always seem to have to go downhill lots and do it all again, lol. This was no different. From the open grassy plains of Howitt, you head down a gentle downhill until you hit the tree line and then it winds down quite steeply. The next couple of kms you kind of head up and down and around the back of a few hills. Its quite a pretty walk, and every so often you pop back around on the northern side of the hills and see the cliffs and valleys around this area. As you get to Magdala the track starts to head uphill again, zig zagging and winding back and forth. Just before the treeline ends, the path splits into two. If you blink or not paying attention it is easy to miss. One path goes up and over the top via the summit, the other goes around the front below the cliffs and they join back up on the other side. Both trails are worth doing and quite spectacular. Lucky for me I was coming back so I could do both. Of course I took the high track as this was a peak I had to bag. About 3/4 of the way up you pass a gap in the cliff called Hells Window, which is quite spectacular and cool. I remember first seeing this feature in ‘The Man from Snowy River’. Now I look at this not only from a rock climbing point of view (not sure if anything climbable) but more from a ski point of view. The gap creates an awesome couloir or chute that looks amazing to ski down in winter. Past Hells Window you keep heading up till you reach the top of Magdala. From here you get a great view of everywhere lol. Howitt, the Crosscut, over to the Bluff, Mt Buller and the whole Howqua valley. It was quite windy up top, so didn’t stay too long and made my way down the steep track towards the King Billys. You pass the track that goes in front of Magdala and follow the spur or ridge downhill to an eventual saddle and then up hill towards Bluff Rd (or is it Brooks Rd, lol they seem to join about here).
Anyway, at the road its a small walk south, until you see a sign post with King Billy No. 1 written on it and the height. From here you head up hill on a small trail through the snow gums up onto a rock ridge. There are several false summits but eventually after a little bit of scrambling you reach the summit cairn and the top (about 1.5kms from road). When I got there it was super windy and cold, so took a couple of pictures and headed down. Back at the road I had a small break and then headed back down hill towards Mt Magdala. A few minutes later I ran into the Timbertop school group, still coming across. They were heading to Lovick’s hut. They were very polite and desperately wanting to know how far to the road lol. I think some of them were getting tired, so were happy when I showed them where they were on the map. Their teachers were a few hundred metres back, keeping an eye on them but letting them lead and work things out.
The walk back towards Magdala was fairly easy, mainly downhill until your crossed a saddle and headed up towards the Mountain. This time though I took the lower trail in front of the cliffs. It really is an awesome alternative to going over the top. Hell’s Window looks great when looking up at it.
Coming down Magdala towards the saddle with Bill Hill, my knees started to hurt again and really had to manage them on the downhill sections. Uphills and flat they are perfect, just the downhills, especially when its steep. But apart from that, the walk back to Mt Howitt was pretty uneventful. I got back to the turnoff to Crosscut and Macalister Springs about 3.45pm. I was going to go do the Crosscut Saw as well, but considering my knees were hurting, I had no torch and even if I made it back before dark, I would still have to set up camp and cook, I decided to leave it till tomorrow. By the time I made it too the springs it was after 4pm, so I fill up my bottles, and grabbed my bag from the hut. My quite night at the hut was stopped by another school group who had rocked up earlier that day. Healesville College’s Outdoor Ed class. Turns out the teacher knew one of my best mates (small world) and the kids were also quite polite and seemed well behaved. 
I went and set up camp near the spring, cooked dinner, cleaned and packed up and was in bed by dark. Kind of glad I didn’t go on the extra hike that afternoon as this was much more relaxed. My only concern was that it was still windy and above me the trees looked rather dead and unsafe. But nothing had fallen the night before and it was way windier then, so I figured/hoped it would be ok. I had a good night sleep.
Nearly 12 hours later I got up, it was still dark, but the sun was rising. I packed my mat and sleeping bag, grabbed a few muesli bars and set off in the early morning light back out towards the Crosscut Saw. It actually only took an hour to get to the highest point, over several bumps. It was hard to tell which of the highpoint was the highest because there was three of them and they all looked the same lol, so … I did all three lol, just to be sure. I was back at camp in under two hours, around 9am. I made some breakfast on the MSR, packed up my tent, cleaned up and packed my bag and was gone by 9.30am. The trip back to the car took about an hour, but I did have to stop and dig a hole lol.
Mt Reynard
The drive along the Howitt Plains took about 50 mins before passing the airport and then the sharp left hand bend that marks the start of the way up to Mt Reynard (1705, 1710 or 1732m). Lol, I’m not sure of the height cause everything seems to say something different. But all I know is that its above 1700ms and on my list so I had to do it. They way up was interesting and I was sure which way I would go as I had seen several different maps and trip reports with several different ways. The map I had seen in Licola said there was a track that head up from the Western side, however you needed to go down a 4wd track to get to it and I have a Lancer, so not the best car for 4wd tracks lol. A lot of trip reports talked about bush bashing, so I decided to test my navigation skills and do that. In the end it was pretty straight forward. I parked on the side of the road/edge right after the corner (heading north, left hand side), where you could see a small white bridge crossing a creek. It did seem out of place, as there is no track leading to it or away from it, instead its just there lol. I packed my bag again, especially warm stuff as the clouds were coming in, and headed for the bridge. After crossing the bridge I turned left, took a bearing of due west and headed along the grass on the uphill side of a small gully that headed towards the trees. You do cross several other little ‘gullies’ which are quite wet and soggy on the way to the tree line, so take care or you will get wet boots lol.
Once you hit the bush, you just head straight up. There are lots and lots of dead trees to negotiate and climb over, but most of the vegetation isn’t too bad. Low lying scrub and bushes and small trees with the occasional big one. Just to practice my navigation skills, I would pick a feature (like a tall tree or rock outcrop) that my bearing intersected with and headed there. Once there do the same again, until I got near the top and out of the trees. Sometimes, the you tend to follow clearings in the scrub which were easy enough to find. Ran into several deer while hiking up, don’t think they were happy I was there, as they were making some strange noises. As you pass the trees and get near to the top, they hill seems to take slightly left of your course, and I even crossed a couple of tracks of sorts. Looked like horses had been along. From here I simple eyeballed my way to the highest spot which is quite hard to tell because there is no clear view and trees around. I didn’t have a proper map with me (I know bad bad), but had a photo of a map on my phone and it showed two sort of high spots???? So when I got to the highest point I could see, I looked around and found a horse trail that seemed to go to another high knoll about 1/2 a km away, so I followed it. Upon arrival there was a small cairn with a pole stuck in it. Figured this must of been it? I looked around and there was nothing higher so took a photo, and retraced my steps along the horse tracks to the first high point then head back along the bearing I first follow (well East this time). Once you get down a bit into the trees, you can actually see the road occasionally, which makes navigating a bit easier. Anyway I kept to my bearing and when I exited the trees I was literally 5 m away from where I entered on the way up. So I was pretty chuffed with that, lol. Headed straight back to the bridge and then up to the car. All up the trip took less than 2 hours.
It was good to get out of the boots and into some sneakers and fresh socks lol. The drive back to Licola was uneventful but pleasant and took about an hour. The drive from Licola to Traralgon also took about an hour and is quite a cool drive especially before Glenmaggie. I got home to Melbourne just in time to greet my wife who was returning from work. It was a great trip! The whole Howitt area is just spectacular! Cant wait to return and tackle the Vikings. The walk from King Billys over Magdala and Howitt to the Crosscut Saw is just amazing. Reynard was a fun little bush bash, but not worth it unless your bagging peaks.
30peaksin30days 
A great variation to what you did here is to begin on the other side of Howitt down in the Howqua valley. Beginning at the upper Howqua camping area you can take the Helicopter spur up onto the top of the range to join the AAWT over Magdala and onto Howitt, Macalister Springs etc. Return back to Upper Howqua can be via Howitt Spur or Stanley’s name spur.
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