The Rodway Range Circuit is a beautiful extension to the popular Tarn Shelf hike at Mt Field.

The Tarn Shelf is nestled into the eastern side of the Rodway Range, so the circuit hike involves walking along the Tarn Shelf at either the start or end of the hike, passing through Newdegate Pass and enjoying wonderful views out west to the massive chunk of rock that is Mt Field West. The track reaches a junction at K Col, where you return to Lake Dobson after scrambling over the dolerite boulders of the Rodway Range.

Rodway Range Circuit in summer

We attempted the hike last week in some beautiful summer weather. The morning actually started out quite chilly with cloud down on the range. We elected to walk along the Tarn Shelf first, then as the weather cleared, climbed up Newdegate Pass to magnificent views of the Watcher, Mt Field West, and fields full of flowering scoparia and cushion plants.

Apart from rocky scrambles at either ends of the range, a lot of the track in between is boardwalk which was put in to reduce the impact of visitors trampling the sensitive alpine vegetation. Despite being hardy and able to survive extremes of temperatures, a lot of the plants such as cushion plants, do not survive being trodden on. As well as protecting the environment, the track work makes the walk along the western side of the range very pleasant indeed.

The views to Mt Field West, with the Watcher in the foreground, are great, especially on a sunny summer day. We took our time along here, before reaching the impressive dolerite boulderfield at the edge of the Rodway Range. I have more images from the day in my online image gallery too if you are interested (click link and scroll to bottom).

From here we walked over the range, back past the turnoff to the Tarn Shelf and along to the ski village and Lake Dobson.

All up it was the better part of 10 hours. We planned on being out for the whole day, but even so it was probably longer than expected. Mt Field West is also listed as a day walk, but judging by what we walked today, that would be a massive day out indeed!