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Alpine National Park

The Alpine National Park is Victoria's largest national park covering an area of 646 000 hectares stretching along the Great Dividing Range from near Mansfield through to the New South Wales border. The park encompases most of the state's highest mountains and also diverse and stunningly beautiful alpine topography with ranges, wild rivers, impressive escarpments, forests and open grasslands known as high plains.

Recreation

The park provides several adventure opportunities for walkers, cross-country skiers and horse riders. It is a popular venue for fishing, deer hunting, four-wheel driving and canoeing.

Two wheel drive roads provide easy access in the summer months and there is plenty of scope for scenic driving, such as from Bright to Omeo along the Great Alpine Road, and short walks to lookouts and other points of interest.

Enjoy varied and beautiful summer wildflowers, and discover a whole range of other plants and animals, all adapted to cope with climatic extremes. The Alpine National Park has the greatest range of flora and fauna of any national park in Victoria.

Accommodation ranges from bush camping to lodges and motels in surrounding towns, and in the adjacent ski resorts of Falls Creek, Mt Hotham, Mt Buller and Dinner Plain. Facilities at picnic spots are generally limited to fireplaces, picnic tables, and in some cases toilets.

The vast area of the park also provides opportunities for remote recreation in wilderness areas accessible to experienced and well-prepared walkers.

Further information about minimal impact recreation and how to leave no trace!

Cultural heritage

Aboriginal people went to and through the Alpine area over thousands of years, and knew its flora, fauna, geography and seasonal changes intimately. Groups visited the Alps in summer to hold ceremonies and gather the nutritious bogong moths that shelter there. Today, Aboriginal communities in Victoria, NSW and the ACT take a particular interest in the management and heritage of the high country.

European pastoralists from NSW started moving south into the Alps in the 1830s. Grazing began around Omeo in 1836, and runs were taken up in the foothills. Summer grazing soon extended to the higher country, and huts were built there for shelter and storage during stock mustering. You can experience this history by visiting the cattlemen's huts dotted along the high plains or the ruins of Wonnangatta Station (home of the pioneer Bryce family for many years) Wallaces Hut near Falls Creek, built in 1889, is one of the oldest surviving huts in the area.

From the 1850s to around 1900, gold lured many people to the Alps. Relics can still be seen in Historic Areas adjacent to the park, and towns like Dargo, Harrietville, Mitta Mitta, Omeo and Bright have strong links to the gold era.

The 1939 bushfires in the forests around Melbourne and the boom in house-building after World War II led to a greatly increased demand for timber from the Alps. This resulted in the building of a network of roads that helped open the Alps to visitors. Today tourism is one of the most important activities in the Alpine area.

Plants

More than 1100 native plant species are found in the park, many of these specially adapted to survive the severe winter climate. Twelve of these species, including the Bogong daisy-bush and silky daisy, are found nowhere else in the world.

Mature alpine ash forests are common as you go up the mountains, and snow gums are the predominant eucalypts in the woodlands around the snowline.

In higher exposed areas where conditions are too severe for trees to survive, the vegetation changes to heathlands, alpine herbfields and grasslands, mossbeds and snowpatch communities. These High Plains are renowned for their summer wildflower displays.

Animals

The park is home for a variety of animals that have adapted to survive the severe winter climate, including threatened species such as the smoky mouse, broad-toothed rat, powerful owl, spotted tree frog and she-oak skink.

Of special note is the rare mountain pygmy-possum, the world's only exclusively alpine marsupial that stores food to last throughout the winter. Its special habitat — boulder slopes with heathland and snow gums — is only found in a few places within the Victorian and New South Wales Alps.

Bogong moths inhabit the Bogong and Dargo high plains and peaks between November and April, away from the heat of the inland plains. They shelter in rock crevices and provide food for mountain pygmy-possums and little ravens.

Geology and geomorphology

Geographical features of the park include the State's tallest mountains: Mount Bogong (1986 metres) and Mount Feathertop (1922 metres), as well as escarpments, steep river valleys and open expanses of high plains.

Looking after the park

Visitors can help protect and preserve the natural features of the park by following some common-sense guidelines:

More information about Alpine National Park

Parks Victoria Information Line 131 963

Parks Victoria's Alpine National Park page.

Skiing information

Sno-Info
 The Australian Bureau of Meteorology Up to date information including charts and satellite images.