Mt Barney - Eagles Ridge, SE Ridge Circuit

This route follows the entire skyline of Mt Barney when viewing the mountain from the east and is extremely long but spectacular hike so don't let the length of only 16km fool you. Eagles ridge starts from the end of the lower portals (LP) track at the creek crossing after the gate and this takes about 50min from the start at the LP car park. Look for the exposed rock and scramble up. There is a rough track to the top of the first knoll which has your first views of the day. If you can make it the top of this by sunrise it will give good pictures and a good start to the day. It took us 1hr25min to here from the start of the hike. Remember it is 7 hours to the top of east peak at a good pace. This hike was done without a rope and there is a minimum of two spots you will have to detour off the ridge to avoid cliffs. When you come to any exposure over the entire trip retrace your track 20-30m and look for a route to the east. The first detour is at the top of the first Tom-Tum down to the next saddle and the second detour is down to the isolated-leaning saddle. We followed the ridge as close a possible which climbs all 3 Tom Tums directly. This calls for some exposed scrambling up the middle Tom Tum; however, this climb can avoided by following the base of the cliffs around to the east until a gulley is found and will lead you to the back side of Tums were you can bag the peak. The best route up Isolated is to stay west as possible where there is more rocky scrambling rather than scrub. As you approach the isolated-leaning saddle look for a gulley to the east 50m back from a cliff line which will block your travel unless you have a full length rope. The route up eagles is straight forward and follows an obvious route; however, there is a few exposed scrambles so don't take your new girlfriend up this for her first hike and I definitely would not recommend this entire route if wet. As you can see from the photo's it worth taking the 50m side trip to view leaning peak at the top of eagles. The route up to north follows the ridge but is thick with scrub. From north peak there is a gulley at the top on the south side. The best way down is to follow the top of the gully west until an obvious route is found. There is a better route up to east peak in the higher section than this gpx trace, stay as east as possible to avoid thick scrub. We choose SE ridge as for the descent as it follows the entire skyline. However, North ridge or Rocky creek will get you back to the lower portals car park which will save the need for a car shuffle and can be used if you are running out of time. Note: this route follows SE ridge proper in the lower section and does not detour down to camp site 10, not that we needed another hill to climb.