Mt Franklin Walk

Mt Franklin is situated to the west of Canberra city, on the Brindabella Ranges that run along the western border of the Australian Capital Territory. It is certainly not a high mountain, but it has a lot of history in its place as the one of the first areas for a ski club to be situated in Australia. There are still remnants of the original cleared runs, the old Austin A40 that was used as a ski tow, and there is a nice new day hut being constructed to replace the original Canberra Alpine Club that was burnt down in a previous bushfire. The Mount Franklin road along the top of the Brindabellas is dirt, but is in very good condition. A normal family sedan can easily be driven as long as there is no snow. The car park is well signposted.
The walk up the hill is fairly steep in places, but as it goes through the middle of the old main ski run it is wide and open. It takes about half an hour at an easy pace to get to the top. The new day hut is about a third of the way up - great place to stop for lunch on the way back down.

Oskar on the Mt Franklin trig.

At the top of the hill is a trig station, and fantastic views of the surrounding Brindabellas. Just down from the trig is one of the old ski runs, with a rusting Austin A40 sitting there as a reminder of the time it was used to power the ski tow. Walk back down to the day hut. There are pit toilets there, and the new hut is a very interesting construction of corrugated iron obviously designed to withstand further bushfires. I was pleased to see this as I want to ski the Brindabellas if we get a good dump of snow in winter. There is the Bulls Head and Bendora huts at one end of the road, and Pryor's Hut at the southern end, but there was nothing in between since the Canberra Alpine Club's lodge had burnt down. This facility now provides shelter in the middle section of the road.

Mt Franklin Hut