Team Gunn Parker - Articles: Helena Hut-Trip report

Last Saturday My good friend and hiking buddy, Mark and I met at the Coles car park in Kalamunda and headed out to the Hills Forest Discovery Centre to park the car and start our hike. The plan the night before was to hike to Helena and stop for lunch then continue on to Waleegh hut, there we would make camp and stay the night.
The weather during that week had become worse and worse. Thursday, Mundaring had 24 mm (1 in) of rain and 35 mm (1.38 in) on Friday. We decided to call off the camping part of our trip and just spend the day hiking and if we became soaked it would not matter.
The morning started out cold with me wearing two fleece tops and a beanie and carrying my brand new Golite Ion.

My pack at the hut


We take the road out of The Discovery centre and head out to the bibbulmun track and on the way we stop to admire the start of a nice water fall at one of the creeks we cross, we have not had a lot of rain and so this water fall should be very good in a couple of weeks or so (if the rain keeps up) we continued along Allan road until we picked up the track where we have to turn off to the East. At this point I have warmed up enough to take off one layer of fleece and my beanie.
After a nice two hour walk we make our way to the Helena hut. This hut is really in a nice spot but it is a pain to get to. We have to turn off the track and walk downhill past the drop box toilet and eventually to the hut. But the thing is if you stay the night here or stop for a break you have to turn around and head straight back up the hill just to get to the track.
We arrived at the hut at about ten am only to find five other people there. four of them, two dads and two kids out for a few days hiking were just leaving. They had hiked in the day before and walked for two hours in the downpour and decided to quit and head home. The other guy who was there was like us and was on a training hike before heading off the next day to fly to the Kokoda Trail in Papua New Guinea. The families left and we were able to get some space in the hut to have our lunch. Today I was testing the AntiGravityGear Cozy for the Trail Designs Caldera Caddy Container, This is a part of my long term test for backpackgeartest.org.

We arrived at about ten am I as mentioned and across the valley was quite a lot of low cloud to be seen.

I started to prepare my meal using my MSR Pocket Rocket, I was having noodles and a vegetable curry mix. The noodles were heated then poured into the caddy to keep warm while I heated the curry.



After we had a chat to the other guy and ate our lunches we packed up and headed off to walk back to the car. So first thing we had to do was hike back up the hill to reach the track, then head off to work our way back. On the way back we decided to stop at two of the creeks to try to catch some tadpoles for our kids, so we stopped at one and left the track to follow the creek to see what we could find. Mark found that if you are not carefully on the slippery rocks you can slip into the water and get soaked, which he did.
He slipped right in with one leg up to his knee, I had to hold back my laughter while he put on a brave face. We caught a few and then left to get to the other creek we had seen. Here we caught a few more for the kids.
After another hour or so of walking we made it back to the car and guess what? Not a sign of getting wet, sure there were a lot of very black clouds but it did not even sprinkle. On this trip I had brought along my slightly modified umbrella and did not get to use it at all.
We walked about four and a half hours and travelled 22 km (13 m) this morning and had a good time shaking out the cobwebs.
We finished the day off with two very welcome cold beers at the Mundaring Weir Hotel and the promise to get back out as soon as the weather broke to camp at Waleegh hut.