Mount Kosciuszko
Mount Kosciuszko is the highest mountain in mainland Australia, standing 2,228 metres above sea level in the Snowy Mountains of New South Wales. By the standards of the world's great peaks it is small, but it is still one of the famous "Seven Summits", the highest mountain on each of the seven continents. Kosciuszko is also the easiest of the seven to climb: you can walk to the summit on a paved path in a few hours.
- Height2,228 mHighest in mainland Australia
- CountryAustraliaIn the Snowy Mountains of New South Wales
- RangeSnowy MountainsPart of the Great Dividing Range
- First climbed1840By Polish explorer Pawel Strzelecki
- Named afterTadeusz KosciuszkoA Polish military hero
- Climbing itA walkNo technical skills needed
Kosciuszko among the Seven Summits
Mount Kosciuszko is by far the shortest of the Seven Summits. Some "Seven Summits" lists use Mount Carstensz in Indonesia (4,884 m) instead, on the grounds that Australia and New Guinea form a single continent.
What is Mount Kosciuszko?
Mount Kosciuszko sits in the Snowy Mountains, the highest part of the Great Dividing Range that runs down the eastern side of Australia. The summit area is rounded rather than spiky, with grassy slopes and the occasional patch of snow. In the brief Australian winter it gets enough snow to support a small ski industry, the only proper ski region in Australia.
The strange Polish name
The mountain is named after Tadeusz Kosciuszko, a Polish military hero who lived from 1746 to 1817. He had no connection to Australia. The mountain got his name because the first European to climb it (in 1840) was a Polish explorer named Pawel Strzelecki, who thought the mountain's shape reminded him of a memorial mound to Kosciuszko back in Krakow. Strzelecki named the peak in honour of his countryman.
The proper Polish pronunciation is roughly "kosh-CHOOSH-koh", but most Australians say something more like "kozzy-OSS-koh" or just "Kozzy".
Wildlife and landscape
The slopes of Kosciuszko are home to unique alpine wildlife. The mountain pygmy possum, the rarest marsupial in Australia, lives only on Kosciuszko and a few nearby peaks. The Corroboree frog (a tiny black-and-yellow striped frog) and the Brindabella midge orchid are also found here and almost nowhere else. The whole area is protected as Kosciuszko National Park, the largest national park in New South Wales at over 6,900 square km.
Skiing and recreation
The Australian Alps around Kosciuszko have just enough snow each winter (roughly June to September) to support a small skiing industry. The main resorts are Thredbo and Perisher, which are the largest ski areas in the southern hemisphere. The snow season is short and the conditions are unreliable, especially with climate change reducing snowfall each decade. Many Australian skiers travel to New Zealand or Japan instead.
Deeper dive: the Great Dividing Range, the Seven Summits debate and Carstensz
The Great Dividing Range is the third-longest mountain range in the world, running approx. 3,500 km down the eastern coast of Australia from Cape York in the north to the western edge of Victoria in the south. Compared to the Himalayas or the Andes it is low (most peaks under 1,500 m) and old, having formed around 300 million years ago. The Snowy Mountains, including Kosciuszko, are the highest section. The Range divides the wet coastal strip on the east from the dry interior of Australia, which is why most Australians live near the coast.
The Seven Summits is the unofficial title for the seven highest mountains on each of the seven continents. The list is debated because the boundaries of the continents are debated. The two main versions are the Bass list (Everest, Aconcagua, Denali, Kilimanjaro, Elbrus, Vinson Massif, Kosciuszko) and the Messner list (which uses Mount Carstensz, also called Puncak Jaya, in Indonesia instead of Kosciuszko, on the grounds that Australia and New Guinea share a continental shelf and should count as one continent: "Australasia" or "Oceania"). Climbers who do "all seven" usually try to bag both Kosciuszko and Carstensz to be sure.
Mount Carstensz (4,884 m), on the island of New Guinea in Indonesia, is a much harder climb than Kosciuszko despite being further inside a single country. It requires a multi-day jungle approach, hiring local porters, navigating tribal politics (the region has a long-running independence movement against Indonesian rule), and tackling actual technical climbing on rock and ice. As climate change melts the small glacier on its summit, the route is changing too. Carstensz also has the only remaining tropical glaciers in Asia.
The country is Australia. The highest peak in South America is Aconcagua.