Mt Albert

Back in May 2021 Col and I climbed Mt Victoria and had planned to do the neighbouring Mt Albert the same day. However, after a chilly walk up Victoria, with horrendous winds on the summit, we opted to skip Albert and rest up ahead of our planned climb of Mt Saddleback the following day. Little did we know that it would take us 2½ years to make it back to Albert! But on Saturday the 27th of January 2024 we finally made it back.

AllTrails told us the return trip to the summit would take just over an hour to complete, but (possibly due to a wrong turn) it took us 1 hour and 50 minutes (not including a half hour for morning the on the summit) to do the 2.38km.

Location

The walk starts from Mt Albert Road near Mathinna, and is about a 45 minute drive from St Helens, with the trailhead only being about 4km east of the Mt Victoria trailhead.

Track Notes

The track starts gently with clear pad that is well marked, as is the route overall (with one caveat, which I’ll get to), passing through open forest before reaching an area where the pad disappears under the surrounding ferns.

After this, the uphill starts, and although steep in places, isn’t too challenging.

As I noted above, the route is very well marked with tape, but despite this, about two thirds of the way up we inadvertently took a turn to the south, not seeing the plentiful pink tape that should have kept us on a more easterly route!

As a result, we ended up doing the top section as a loop, instead of the in-and-out route that follows the actual trail. While this wrong turn seems to be somewhat well used, does lead to the summit, and has a pad an occasional cairn to guide the way, it has several sections that are a bit exposed and require some scrambling.

Conversely, the in-and-out route that we came back down on has no exposed sections at all and is the far simpler route to the summit.

Despite the wrong turn, we still had a good walk and enjoyed the views from the very windy summit, with the wind forcing us to find a more protected spot below the summit to enjoy our morning tea.