Mount Townsend

Mount Townsend, a mountain in the Main Range of the Great Dividing Range, is located in the Snowy Mountains region of New South Wales, Australia.

Mount Townsend
Dawn on Mount Townsend, viewed from Watsons Crags, October 2011.
Highest point
Elevation2,209 m (7,247 ft) [1]
Prominence189 m (620 ft) [1]
Isolation3.71 km (2.31 mi) [1]
ListingSeven Second Summits
Coordinates36°25′21″S 148°15′32″E [2]
Geography
Mount Townsend
Location in New South Wales
LocationSnowy Mountains, New South Wales, Australia
Parent rangeMain Range, Great Dividing Range
Topo mapYoungal
Climbing
Easiest routeHike or ski

With an elevation of 2,209 metres (7,247 ft) above sea level,[1] Mount Townsend is the second-highest peak of mainland Australia. Located in Kosciuszko National Park, the mountain is 3.68 kilometres (2.29 mi) north of Australia's highest mainland peak, Mount Kosciuszko.

Although lower than Mount Kosciuszko, Mount Townsend has a more craggy peak and is arguably more dominant than the relatively round-topped Mount Kosciuszko.

The confusion about swapping the names of Mount Kosciuszko and Mount Townsend was straightened out in 1940 by B. T. Dowd,[3] 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 [4] it further confirmed Dowd's clarification. This means that Targangil, mentioned in Spencer's 1885 article,[5] was the indigenous name of Mount Townsend, not of Mount Kosciuszko.

Whilst Mount Townsend is main land Australia's second highest peak, it is not the second highest mountain because of its prominence of only 189m. Instead main land Australia's second highest mountain is Mount Bogong in Victoria.

See also

References
  1. "Mount Townsend". Peakbagger.com. Retrieved 22 July 2012.
  2. "Mount Townsend". Geographical Names Register (GNR) of NSW. Geographical Names Board of New South Wales. Retrieved 27 May 2015.
  3. Dowd, B.T. The Cartography of Mount Kosciusko. Royal Australian Historical Society. Journal & Proceedings, vol. 26, part I, pp. 97-107
  4. C. Daley Count Paul Strzelecki’s Ascent of Mount Kosciusko and Journey through Gippsland The Victorian Historical Magazine, vol.19, no 2, pp. 41-53, 1941
  5. " M. Spencer The Highest Point in Australia The Sydney Morning Herald, February 18, 1885",


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