Having only explored the Grampians around Halls Gap, I took a weekend out to walk to some of the lesser seen areas. The Fortress was on my list after seeing some interesting infra-red medium format photographs taken by Ben Kreunen. The Fortress is a formiddable sandstone outcrop perched high in the remote south-western region of the National Park. After thrashing my car on the muddy roads, Bec and I managed to find the unmarked track leading to it. It was a two hour uphill slog to reach a decent rock that I was able to scale and get to a level above the treetops for some photographs (including the panorama above and 100 megapixel tiled image below). We also saw some Gang Gang Cockatoos along the way which I had never seen before.
The Fortress also hosts a climb called the Passport to Insanity which makes use of the overhang. Embedded below is a video of a climber hanging from the cracks in the overhanging roof of The Fortress – pure insanity!
It’s an impressive area isn’t it Cain. It’s name the Fortress speaks for itself. I made a trip out to this lesser visitated part of the Grampians a couple of years ago myself – impressive ! I like the pan shot – is it a stitch or a crop ?
it’s a stitch of three shots, the original is 10 megapixels. i was waiting a bit for the clouds to position themselves to light it all up.
Sounds like a wonderful place to spend the weekend! That is a great pano and that 100mb stitch really shows off how difficult a climb it must be – cheers for the Youtube link – intense stuff.
the NP is quite large – heaps of walks on offer – and climbs if you’ve got balls like the guy in the vid. cheers