10 days before I took this photo I was on an overnight hike with some friends. We had made it as far as Angelus Hut (which can be seen in the photo looking North on the right side of Angelus Lake). The weather had took a turn for the worse and the visibility was likely only around 50 metres during our time at the hut. A friend who had been in the area before told me that the area was really spectacular. When I got home I checked the internet to find a few pictures to try to get an idea of what the area should have looked like if the weather had been better. I found a picture that looked like it had been taken from Mount Angelus and it was about there and then that I decided I had to get my panorama gear to the top of this mountain.
I likely didn’t take the most direct route to the mountain as I went there via Hopeless Creek which is to the south east, even though my car was parked almost due North of here. I just wanted to see a few more things along the way and try and find out what might have caused someone to name the area “Hopeless”. On day 2 I made it to Sunset saddle which is just a few hundred metres lower than the summit of Mount Angelus. I spent some time there enjoying the view and trying to rest a bit as I was finding my 20kg back quite heavy after having walked with it all day and all of the previous day. I sat and looked at the summit of the mountain, trying to decide how long it would take me to get there and trying to work out if I had enough daylight to make it to the top and then back down to Angelus Hut. There was no path that I could see to follow so I just took the most direct route. Closer to the summit I had to kick my hiking boots through a thin layer of ice which had formed on top of the snow, in parts I was unable to kick through this and had to be very careful not to slip off the side of the mountain. I made a promise to myself that next time I do something like this I’d have crampons and Ice Axe… After taking a few photos I started my decent using my camera tripod as a walking pole with the intent to use my Nodal Ninja 5 panoramic tripod head and tripod as an Ice Axe should I start to slip. Luckily I didn’t need to use it and managed to safely get back down to the saddle.