Hiking Hartz Peak in the Snow

Back in March of 2020, Col and I hiked Hartz Peak on a wet and gloomy day, which resulted in us having no real views either of, or from, the mountain. So on Saturday the 20th of August 2022, we set out once again to visit this Abel, this time with the bonus that we’d get to do it in the snow!

All up the 8km return trip took us 4 hours, including a short lunch break on the summit.

Location

The walk starts from the end of Hartz Road, which turns off Arve Road — southeast of Geeveston. Both TasTrails and AllTrails have good maps and directions.

The Track

The track commences from a visitor shelter at the car park. Most of the initial section consists of boardwalk and is very easy.

Once past Ladies Tarn, the track briefly takes a steeper upward climb, before another gentler uphill section is reached. It is only just prior to the summit that the track becomes steep again.

We’d recently purchased some Kahtoola MICROspikes in anticipation of some icy walking and they turned out to be fantastic on this walk.

The final push up to the summit didn’t appear to be particularly well marked in the snow, but thankfully we had the footprints of two people who had been up before us to follow. In all, this is a relatively easy walk, even in the snow, and we were lucky enough to get the views we had missed out on last time.