Log One Hundred and Fourteen – Mountain Bike Riding the Highs and Lows

14 March 2025

We agreed we would ride the Cascade / Pilot Wilderness mountain bike trail. Surely just a bit of training and some extra time on the bike and we would be good for a 60 km ride through the Snowy Mountains National Park.

March would be the best time of the year. The weather would still be warm and predictable and there would be no snow in the high country, perfect. The plan was to drive down to the mountains on a Monday, ride the Pilot Wilderness on Tuesday, on our rest day walk Mt Kosciusko and then ride the Thredbo Valley Trail on Thursday.

Day One, we left our accommodation at about 7:30am and rode up to the Cascade carpark. There we met our fourth companion on this ride through the Pilot Wilderness. Our first objective was Bobs Ridge. This turned out to be a long climb with several creek crossings in country above the tree line. The scenery was amazing.

While catching our breath a hiker we had just passed was about to walk past us. This was not a good look being overtaken by a hiker. We quickly remounted and were back on our way.

From Bobs Ridge we headed generally downhill with lots of short sharp climbs on a track a four wheel drive car could negotiate. We dropped down into forested country and more creek crossings. You were never sure whether the creek bottom was deep mud, filled with large rocks or was just deep water. We all had wet feet after the first creek.

A stop at the Tin Mine Hut for lunch where we were closely watched by a mob of brumbies. Conditions up here at this time of year are pretty good and the brumbies all looked to be in good condition.

From Tin Mine Hut the amount of horse poo on the track seemed to increase exponentially. Wild horses have the habit of defecating in piles as a means of marking their territory and they seemed to prefer the track we were riding. It was pretty much an unavoidable feature of the ride in the afternoon.

While the general profile of the ride was downhill there were still many steep climbs especially over the erosion mounds across the track. One of these mounds caught one of our riders by surprise and gravity took over. It’s hard to go forward when your front wheel is off the ground and your rear wheel is spinning.

The final 5 kms of this adventure was a steep decline to the Snowy River valley. In places the gradient was -30%. That means for every 100m horizontal distance we dropped 30m. Yep, that’s steep. The track surface was also very loose gravel and rocks with some sharp turns. All good for your heart rate.

We reached the Pinch River and the end of our ride at 4:30pm and were met by our driver and a trailer to take us back to Thredbo. Our transport also came with cold beer which was very much enjoyed purely for the purpose of rehydration.

A hot shower and a couple of beers at the pub brought the day to an end.

Travel Log One Hundred and Fifteen will cover the next two days of our adventure…….