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Mount Kosciuszko
Tar-gan-gil/Kunama Namadgi
Mount Kosciuszko as viewed from the Summit Walk in December 2024.
Highest point
Elevation	2,228 m (7,310 ft)
Prominence	2,228 m (7,310 ft)
Isolation	1,894.26 km (1,177.04 mi)
Listing	Country high point Ultra
Coordinates	36°27′21″S 148°15′49″E / 36.45583°S 148.26361°E / -36.45583; 148.26361
Geography
Mount KosciuszkoSnowy Mountains, New South Wales, AustraliaShow map of New South WalesMount KosciuszkoMount Kosciuszko (Australia)Show map of Australia
Parent range	Main Range, Great Dividing Range
Topo map	Perisher Valley
Climbing
Easiest route	Walk (dirt road)

Mount Kosciuszko (/ˌkɒziˈʌskoʊ/ KOZ-ee-USK-oh; (Polish: KOSH-CHUSH-ko) Ngarigo: Kunama Namadgi) is mainland Australia's highest mountain, at 2,228 metres (7,310 ft) above sea level. It is located on the Main Range of the Snowy Mountains in Kosciuszko National Park, part of the Australian Alps National Parks and Reserves, in New South Wales, Australia, and is located west of Crackenback and close to Jindabyne, near the border with Victoria. Mount Kosciuszko is ranked 35th by topographic isolation.

Etymology and charting

The mountain was named by the Polish explorer Paweł (Paul) Edmund Strzelecki in 1840, in honour of Polish freedom fighter General Tadeusz Kościuszko, because of its perceived resemblance to the Kościuszko Mound in Kraków, Poland.

An exploration party led by Strzelecki and James Macarthur beside him with Indigenous guides Charlie Tarra and Jackey set off on what is called Strzelecki’s Southern expedition. Macarthur was seeking new pastures. Strzelecki wanted to investigate the climate, geology, paleontology and geography of NSW and to publish his findings. This included identifying Australia’s highest summit, which Strzelecki reached on 12 March 1840.

The approach was made from Geehi Valley. After climbing Hannel’s Spur, the peak now named Mount Townsend was reached. Here Strzelecki used his instruments to make observations. Mt Townsend is Australia's second highest mountain, adjacent to and almost the same height as Mt Kosciuszko, and Strzelecki saw that the neighbouring peak was slightly higher. In the presence of Macarthur he named the higher summit Mount Kosciusko after the famous Polish-Lithuanian military leader who died in 1817. As it was late, Macarthur decided to return to camp and Strzelecki alone climbed the Kosciuszko summit.

Based on Strzelecki’s records, Australia’s highest summit was mapped. A cartographical mistake made in an edition of Victorian maps transposed Mount Kosciusko to the position of the present Mount Townsend. Later editions of the map continued to show the original location. NSW maps did not make this mistake.

The Victorian error created confusion. In 1885, Austrian explorer Robert von Lendenfeld, guided by James M. Spencer, a local pastoralist, aided by a map containing the transposition error, reached Mount Townsend believing it was Mount Kosciusko. According to Spencer, the local Aboriginals called Mount Kosciusko Tar-gan-gil. Like Strzelecki, Lendenfeld also observed that the neighbouring peak was higher. He named it Mount Townsend to honour the surveyor who in 1846 traversed the peak.

Lendenfeld claimed he had identified and reached the highest peak of the continent. The NSW Department of Mines discovered Lendenfeld's mistake and assigned the name Mount Townsend to the second-highest mountain of the range. Lendenfeld's announcement created further confusion. When Lendenfeld's mistake was corrected, a popular legend was created that the established names of the two mountains were swapped rather than re-educate the populace of the name of the highest mountain.

The confusion was straightened out in 1940 by B. T. Dowd, a cartographer and historian of the NSW Lands Department. His study reaffirmed that the mountain named by Strzelecki as Mount Kosciuszko was indeed, as the NSW maps had always shown, Australia’s highest summit. When Macarthur’s field book of the historical journey was published in 1941 by C. Daley, it further confirmed Dowd’s clarification. This means that Targangil, mentioned in Spencer’s 1885 article, was the indigenous name of Mount Townsend, not of Mount Kosciusko. According to A. E. J. Andrews, Mount Kosciuszko had no indigenous name. Detailed analysis of the mountain history can be found in books by H. P. G. Clews and in the cited A.E.J. Andrews' book Kosciusko: The Mountain in History.

The name of the mountain was previously spelled "Mount Kosciusko", an Anglicisation, but the spelling "Mount Kosciuszko" was officially adopted in 1997 by the Geographical Names Board of New South Wales. The traditional English pronunciation of Kosciuszko is /ˌkɒziˈʌskoʊ/ KOZ-ee-US-koh, but the pronunciation /kɒˈʃʊʃkoʊ/ kosh-UUSH-koh is now sometimes used, which is substantially closer to the Polish pronunciation [kɔɕˈt͡ɕuʂkɔ] kosh-CHYUUSH-koh.

Aboriginal names

There are several native Aboriginal (Ngarigo) names associated with Mount Townsend, where J. Macarthur recorded in 1840 some campings of the natives. There is some confusion as to the exact sounds. These are Jagungal, Jar-gan-gil, Tar-gan-gil, Tackingal; however, all of them mean Bogong Moth, which aestivate on the mountain.

In 2019, "Kunama Namadgi" was submitted to the Geographical Names Board of New South Wales as a proposed dual name for Mount Kosciuszko. The proposal was submitted by the Toomaroombah Kunama Namadgi Indigenous Corporation, which states that the proposed name means "snow" and "mountain". According to Uncle John Casey, the mountain's Ngarigo name has "been Kunama Namadgi for 4,000 years, since we've been on country, until the white man came in the early 1800s and that's when they changed it". However, Iris White, the chairperson of the Southern Kosciuszko Executive Advisory Committee, disputed that account, stating "that name is not from our language. It's offensive because in some of our languages 'Kunama' actually means faeces". White said that a new name should not be given "just for the sake of it sounding Aboriginal or sounding good".

Geography

The mountain was formed by geologic uplift. It was not formed by any recent volcanic activity. Eroded granite intrusions remain at the summit as large boulders above the more heavily eroded sedimentary rocks.

Plant species found in the mountain include:

• Kosciuszko buttercup (Ranunculus anemoneus)
• Vickery's grass (Rytidosperma vickeryae)
• Phebalium (Nematalolepis ovatifolia)
• Billy buttons (Craspedia spp.)
• Snow gum

Reaching the summit

Mount Kosciuszko is the highest summit in mainland Australia. Until 1977 it was possible to drive from Charlotte Pass to within a few metres of the summit, but in 1977 the road was closed to public motor vehicle access due to environmental concerns. The road is open from Charlotte Pass for walkers and cyclists for 7.6 kilometres (5 mi) to Rawson Pass, at an elevation of 2,100 metres (6,900 ft) above sea level. From there a 1.4-kilometre (1 mi) walking path leads to the summit.

The peak may also be approached from Thredbo, taking 3 to 3.5 hours for a round trip. This straightforward walk starts from the top of the Thredbo Kosciuszko Express chairlift, which operates all year-round. The walking path is popular in summer, and is a mesh walkway to protect the native vegetation and prevent erosion. It is 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) to Rawson Pass, where it meets the track from Charlotte Pass, and from where it is a further 1.4 kilometres (0.87 mi) to the summit. The walk to the summit is the easiest of all the Seven Summits.

Australia's highest public toilet was built at Rawson pass in 2007, to cope with the more than 100,000 people visiting the mountain each summer.

The third and often overlooked route up Mount Kosciuszko is up the very challenging and historic Hannel's Spur Track (15.5 km or 9.6 mi), which approaches from the NW and is the only route to pass through the Western Fall Wilderness Zone – passing through four different bio-diversity bands along the ascent. The Hannel's Spur Track is officially Australia's biggest vertical ascent of 1,800 m (5,900 ft). This is the same route that explorer Paul Strzelecki climbed and discovered Kosciuszko in 1840 and also the same annual route that the stockmen once brought the cattle up/down from the valley almost 2 km (1.2 mi) below to graze in the alpine meadows of Kosi throughout the summer. The various aboriginal tribes from the Murray valley also used this same route annually for millennia to access Kosciuszko to harvest the delicacies of Bogong moths that were abundant throughout the summer months and to socialise with other tribes from the coast and northern plains. The Hannel's Spur Track trailhead (sign) is about a 1.4-kilometre (0.87 mi) hike SSE of the Geehi Rest Area on the Alpine Way road between the towns of Thredbo and Khancoban.

The peak and the surrounding areas are snow-covered in winter and spring (usually beginning in June and continuing until October or later). The road from Charlotte Pass is marked by snow poles and provides a guide for cross-country skiers, and the track from Thredbo is easily followed until covered by snow in winter.

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1 North Ramshead 2 Kosciuszko summit, obscured by clouds 3 Etheridge Range 4 Mount Clarke (Mount Townsend is behind it) 5 Kangaroo Ridge 6 Snowy River headwaters

Recreation

Kosciuszko National Park is also the location of the downhill ski slopes closest to Canberra and Sydney, containing the Thredbo, Charlotte Pass, and Perisher ski resorts. Mount Kosciuszko may have been ascended by Indigenous Australians long before the first recorded ascent by Europeans.

Each year in December, an ultramarathon running race called the Coast to Kosciuszko ascends to the top of Mount Kosciuszko after starting at the coast 240 kilometres (150 mi) away.

Higher Australian mountains

Higher peaks exist within territory administered or claimed by Australia: outside the continent are Mawson Peak (2,745 m or 9,006 ft) on Heard Island and Dome Argus (4,030 m or 13,220 ft), Mount McClintock (3,490 m or 11,450 ft) and Mount Menzies (3,355 m or 11,007 ft) in the Australian Antarctic Territory.

Although not in Australia, Puncak Jaya in New Guinea, Indonesia, which stands at 4,884 m or 16,024 ft, is the highest mountain in the Australian continent as well as Oceania.

In popular culture

The 1863 picture by Eugene von Guerard hanging in the National Gallery of Australia titled Northeast view from the northern top of Mount Kosciusko is actually from Mount Townsend.

In the well known poem by Banjo Paterson, The Man From Snowy River is said to hail from “up by Kosciusko’s side”.

Australian rock band Midnight Oil recorded a song called "Kosciusko" on its 1984 album Red Sails in the Sunset, referring to the mountain. The spelling was updated to "Kosciuszko" for the group's 1997 compilation album, 20,000 Watt R.S.L.

A species of lizard, Eulamprus kosciuskoi, is named after Mount Kosciuszko.

The mountain top was the finish line on the fifth season of The Amazing Race Australia.

Gallery

• Kosciuszko National Park as viewed from the summit
• The base of a survey trig marker at the summit
• East side of the mountain
• Mount Kosciuszko Summit walk
• The summit from Charlotte Pass, New South Wales
• Mount Etheridge from south side showing high elevation toilet at Rawson Pass
• View of Mount Kosciuszko and the Etheridge Range from the headwaters of the Snowy River
• The plate at the top
• River flowing down from the summit
• Lake Cootapatamba, the lake on the highest place in the Australian mainland
• Adjacent mountain ranges

See also

• Australian Alps
• Australian Alps National Parks and Reserves
• List of mountains of Australia

Notes

1. Kościuszko is also a national hero in Lithuania, and Belarus, and hero of the American Revolutionary War

References

1. ^ "Mountain Kosciuszko, Australia". Peakbagger.com. Retrieved 28 May 2015.
2. "Kosciuszko National Park". Australian Alps National Parks. Australian Government. Archived from the original on 7 January 2019. Retrieved 13 June 2009.
3. ^ "Mount Kosciuszko". Geographical Names Register (GNR) of NSW. Geographical Names Board of New South Wales. Retrieved 27 May 2015.
4. Wells, John C. (2008). Longman Pronunciation Dictionary (3 ed.). Harlow: Pearson. p. 446. ISBN 978-1-4058-8118-0. "Kosciusko [sic]".
5. Andrews, Alan E. J. "Mount Kosciuszko - Our Highest Mountain". mtkosciuszko.org.au. Tabletop Press - ACT. Archived from the original on 5 October 2024. Retrieved 6 September 2020.
6. Wheaton, Claire; Lauder, Simon (14 June 2019). "Is it time to give Mount Kosciuszko a dual name?". www.abc.net.au. ABC. Archived from the original on 5 October 2024. Retrieved 6 September 2020.
7. "Australian Geographical Name Derivations". Wikiski.com. 8 April 2011. Archived from the original on 2 January 2020. Retrieved 18 June 2012.
8. Strzelecki, Paul Edmund de. Physical description of New South Wales and Van Diemen’s Land (1845). Adelaide: Libraries Board of South Australia, 1967 (Reprint)
9. ^ Andrews, Alan E. J. (1991). Kosciusko: The Mountain in History. O'Connor ACT: Tabletop Press. p. 50. ISBN 0-9590841-2-6.
10. Paszkowski, L. Sir Paul Edmund de Strzelecki: reflections on his life. Arcadia, Australian Scholarly Publishing. Melbourne 1997. ISBN 1-875606-39-4.
11. "RAHS Publications - The Cartography of Mount Kosciusko". mtkosciuszko.org.au. Archived from the original on 3 June 2021. Retrieved 3 June 2021.
12. ^ " Jas. M. Spencer The Highest Point in Australia The Sydney Morning Herald, February 18, 1885".
13. Slattery, Deirdre (2015). Australian Alps : Kosciuszko, Alpine and Namadgi National Parks (Second ed.). Clayton, Vic. ISBN 978-1-4863-0171-3. OCLC 910161107. Archived from the original on 5 October 2024. Retrieved 3 June 2021.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
14. Dowd, B. T. "The Cartography of Mount Kosciusko". Royal Australian Historical Society. Journal & Proceedings, vol. 26, part I, pp. 97–107.
15. Daley, C. "Count Paul Strzelecki’s Ascent of Mt Kosciusko and Journey through Gippsland" The Victorian Historical Magazine, vol. 19, no 2, pp. 41–53, 1941.
16. ^ Andrews, Alan E. J. FRAHS. Mount Kosciusko, Our Highest Mountain, Letters to the Editor, Published in the Kosciuszko Hut Association Newsletter No: 108 Winter 2000.
17. Clews, H. P. G. Strzelecki’s Ascent of Mount Kosciuszko 1840 Australia Felix Literary Club, Melbourne 1973.
18. Yallop, Colin, ed. (2005). "Kosciusko". Macquarie Dictionary (4th ed.). Melbourne: The Macquarie Library. ISBN 1-876429-14-3.
19. "Mount Kosciuszko and the push to give our highest peak an Indigenous dual name". ABC News. 15 June 2019. Archived from the original on 15 June 2019. Retrieved 15 June 2019.
20. Geology Page: Geologists discover how Australia's highest mountain was created | Geology Page Archived 5 October 2024 at the Wayback Machine, access-date: 17 February 2017
21. ^ Erfurt-Cooper, Patricia (2014). Volcanic Tourist Destinations. Springer Science & Business Media. p. 273. ISBN 978-3-642-16191-9. Archived from the original on 5 October 2024. Retrieved 24 April 2017.
22. "National Parks' 'Southern Kosciuszko walking tracks factsheet'". Archived from the original on 5 October 2024. Retrieved 10 January 2017.
23. Hamill, Mike (2014). Climbing the Seven Summits: A Comprehensive Guide to the Continents' Highest Peaks. The Mountaineers Books. p. 275. ISBN 978-1-59485-649-5. Retrieved 24 April 2017.
24. Lewis, Daniel (6 December 2006). "Celebrating the centenary of Australia's rooftop playground". The Sydney Morning Herald. Archived from the original on 10 November 2018. Retrieved 10 November 2018.
25. "The rush to complete Australia's highest dunny" (PDF). Department of Environment and Climate Change, NSW. 3 May 2007. pp. 6–7. Archived from the original (PDF) on 9 November 2014.
26. "Coast to Kosciuszko". Coast2kosci.com. Archived from the original on 15 June 2012. Retrieved 18 June 2012.
27. "Eugene von Guérard: North-east view from the northern top of Mount Kosciusko 1863". National Gallery of Australia. Archived from the original on 4 November 2008.
28. Macdonald, John Boyd. "Home » Jokar projects » Ten-Mile Stare". Jokar Photography. Archived from the original on 7 May 2021. Retrieved 8 July 2019. Mt. Townsend, 19 November 1862. Eugene Von Guérard's painting
29. "Strzelecki's Kosciusko by E. Axford". mtkosciuszko.org.au. Archived from the original on 5 October 2024. Retrieved 23 October 2017.
30. "The Man from Snowy River". Archived from the original on 9 March 2023. Retrieved 19 October 2023.
31. Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. ISBN 978-1-4214-0135-5. ("Kosciusko [sic]", p. 145).
32. "Amazing Race finale to feature Canberra - and Mount Kosciuszko". The Canberra Times. 20 March 2021. Archived from the original on 19 March 2021. Retrieved 27 March 2021.

External links

• Mt Kosciuszko Inc. — page for information about explorer P. E. Strzelecki – and news about Mount Kosciuszko
• "Mount Kosciuszko". Peakware.com. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. — photo

v t e Highest peaks in the States and territories of Australia
Australian Capital Territory: Bimberi Peak (1,912 m or 6,273 ft) New South Wales: Mount Kosciuszko (2,228 m or 7,310 ft) Northern Territory: Mount Zeil (1,531 m or 5,023 ft) Queensland: Mount Bartle Frere (1,622 m or 5,322 ft) South Australia: Ngarutjaranya (1,435 m or 4,708 ft) Tasmania: Mount Ossa (1,617 m or 5,305 ft) Victoria: Mount Bogong (1,986 m or 6,516 ft) Western Australia: Mount Meharry (1,253 m or 4,111 ft)
Category Commons

v t e Snowy Monaro Region, New South Wales, Australia
Townships and Villages	Adaminaby Berridale Bombala Bredbo Cooma Delegate Jindabyne Thredbo Village
Localities and rural places	Anglers Reach Blue Cow Mountain Bullocks Flat Charlotte Pass Dalgety Dry Plain Guthega Michelago Nimmitabel Old Adaminaby Perisher Valley Pine Valley Rhine Falls Shannons Flat Smiggin Holes Wambrook
National parks and other natural features	Kosciuszko National Park Valentine Falls
Rivers and other watercourses	Berrima Burrungubugge Cooma Back Eucumbene Goorudee Gungarlin Ingeegoodbee Jacobs Little Thredbo Mowamba Pinch Snowy River Thredbo
Dams and/or associated reservoirs	Eucumbene Guthega Island Bend Jindabyne Jounama
Mountain ranges	Snowy Mountains
Attractions	Alpine Way Barry Way Big Trout Blue Lake Kiandra Lake Albina Lake Cootapatamba Mount Kosciuszko Mount Townsend Perisher Ski Resort Selwyn Snowfields Skitube Smiggin Holes Snowy Mountains Highway Snowy Scheme Museum
Main Article: Local government areas of New South Wales

• Mountains of New South Wales
• Snowy Mountains
• Extreme points of Australia
• Highest points of countries
• Landmarks in New South Wales
• Seven Summits
• Sport in New South Wales