Location: Mt Buffalo, Mt Buffalo National Park, VIC
Leader: Steve Toal
Details: Mt Buffalo offers fantastic climbing, particularly for experienced climbers. The plateau has a huge variety of single pitch climbs, as well as some of the best multi-pitch climbing in Victoria. The granite slabs and cracks make for thought provoking pitches. This is the most popular trip on our VCC Events Calendar, so get in early if you want to attend. (Steve and Paula will not be running a Buffalo trip early in 2025.)
Mt Buffalo is the same distance from Melbourne as Mt Arapiles but sees far less traffic due to the camping being much more restricted, and the plateau being covered in snow for around 4 months of the year. Fortunately, we've got the camping covered with sites having been pre-booked and paid for, and we're (reasonably) pretty confident that it won't be snowing at this time of year. But never say never with an alpine environment! In the event of poor climbing weather, bushwalking is a great option. Or you can just use the time to check out some of the other, less visited cliffs on the Plateau for a future climb.
The granite of Mt Buffalo's Gorge and its multiple peaks offer a variety of slab, crack and face climbing, in both sport and trad routes - don't forget your bolt plates! For those who are particularly keen, there are even multi-pitch routes more than twice the height of anything to be found at Arapiles!
For those that have never been, the VCC web site has a copy of Steve's Beginner's Guide, dated 2014 but still will give you an idea - https://vicclimb.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/bufftiV2_2014-01.pdf. Steve has also published a new comprehensive guidebook for Mount Buffalo which will also be available to purchase on the trip.
This is an intermediate to advanced level trip. Not sure if you're novice, intermediate or advanced? Find your level or contact the trip leader.
We will be climbing at Buffalo from Friday, 29th November until Friday, 6th December.
There are two options for camping spaces:
There are 6 places for the full 7 nights.
There are 4 places for 3 nights.
We are limiting camping to a maximum of 4 persons per site, as it is too difficult to fit more people onto these sites.
You need to pay your full share of the camping fee in advance in order to book your place on this popular trip. These fees are non-refundable in the event of you not attending or leaving early, regardless of the weather. If participants can't stay the whole 7 nights, Steve will try to resell your allocation before the trip. The cost of camping has been arrived at to share the cost equitably amongst participants.
If you are interested in joining our leaders, Steve and Paula Toal, on this trip, please email Steve as soon as possible. Preference will be given to past attendees and participants attending for the full week.
