One of NSW and Australia’s classic day walks, the Main Range Walk in Kosciuszko National Park is also Australia’s highest walking track, maintaining an elevation between roughly 1800m and 2200m. It’s a 22km loop through alpine vegetation, taking in glacial lakes and Australia’s most extensive views along the way. The side trip to Australia’s second highest peak, Mt Townsend (2210m), is well worth it, and offers a more interesting experience than the shorter side trip to our highest peak, Mt Kosciuszko (2228m). If you were keen you could do both, but we by passed Kosciuszko as we’d been there before. The walk as depicted here was about 25km with 750m change in elevation.
We did this at Easter in 2016, and there were a lot of people. However the crowds thinned out once past Blue Lake, then picked up again once you get to Mt Kosciuszko. I think we only saw a handful of people on our side trip to Mt Townsend. Track notes at the end.
Main Range Walk: The Scenery
I wasn’t blogging in 2016 and so most of my pictures are fairly uninspiring (actually, pretty crap). You can see similar scenery from nearby (and with some overlap) in other more recent posts, such as Mount Sentinel, and a circuit taking in Mt Twynam & Blue Lake. There are some good shorter options in the high country, including Mt Stilwell, which also starts at Charlotte Pass, and Porcupine Rocks back down the road at Perisher. I also did the Kosciuszko Summit Walk from Charlotte Pass some years earlier. Another good high country walk, Mt Tate, starts at Guthega. You can also look at my pick of the day walks in the whole of Kosciuszko National Park in this ‘best-of’ compilation.
I’ve mixed in a few shots from other occasions on the same route…


Side trip to Blue Lake…


Moving on to Carruthers Saddle…















A few from the Mt Kosciuszko to Charlotte Pass section of the walk (taken in October)…

One last shot from the actual day we did the walk…

Track Notes

Information on the Main Range Track is available on the NPWS website, but it’s really obvious the whole length. Most people would walk it anti-clockwise from Charlottes Pass. Much less obvious is the route to Mt Townsend, which is a faint track of sorts leaving the Main Range Track at Muellers Pass. There’s a short scramble through rocks at the very top.