Old Mentors hike to “The Pinnacle”

Old Mentors hike to “The Pinnacle”

On the first night of camp during this offsite adventure to the Grampians with our Old Mentor participants, we all opened up to share a challenge that we’ve faced this year. Most of the topics were based around challenges at school and starting VCE exams, as well as how we cope and overcome these challenges.

This conversation on challenges led into a discussion about tomorrow’s big challenge of hiking up to “The Pinnacle”. It was a great open conversation about how some of us will find different parts of the hike challenging and that we can help and encourage each other to get through it together.

We started our journey at the Wonderland Car Park, which meant a 4-kilometre loop walk. The start of the walk became one of the bigger challenges for some as there is no set track – we were walking up rock faces on a 45-degree angle. Some Mentors felt that their shoes couldn’t grip well but after a small discussion around footwear, we noticed another hiker walk past us wearing thongs! This ended our discussion on appropriate footwear and we pushed on.

The walk continued up and it felt like the hill was never-ending. For the Camp Leaders at the front, they made sure that everyone stopped and had a break as we went. It was almost every few hundred meters that we stopped for a breather.

The group eventually stopped at the halfway chair and took in the view. We started to make shapes out of rocks, check out caves and enjoy the sights on the journey up to distract our minds for the rest of the journey.

Once we hit “Silent Street” or the stairway to heaven (a staircase straight up a narrow canyon), we knew we were close and the end was near.

We made it! Everyone reached “The Pinnacle”! With a sigh of relief, we all sat down together and enjoyed our well-earned morning tea. Everyone shared a pat on the back and congratulated one another before we stepped right out on the lookout. For some, this was the biggest challenge of the morning – stepping out onto an overhanging rock-face looking over Halls Gap.

The journey back down was a little quicker than the way up – we were down in about half the time it took us to get up. Our legs were all getting tired – each step down became a challenge as our legs started to wobble and shake in fatigue. We stopped again at the halfway point and the Mentors compared the uncontrollable bounce of their legs as they were sitting.

Tummies started to rumble and lunchtime was fast approaching. We pushed on through the rest of the walk and were sitting on the bus at 12.30pm and back at camp eating lunch by 1.00pm. It was a huge morning for all and everyone enjoyed resting their legs while eating lunch.