One of Tasmania’s favourite historic mountain huts, Old Pelion Hut located  approx half-way between Cradle Mt. and Lake St. Clair in the Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park, celebrated it’s centenary this year – 2017

Built in 1917 by the Mount Pelion Mines No Liability Company as accommodation for the manager of the nearby copper mine on Pelion Plains, Old Pelion Hut remains a popular landmark on the world-renowned Overland Track, with many walkers making the short side trip to see this well-preserved slice of Tasmanian high country history.

Currently used as an emergency shelter, Old Pelion’s colourful history safeguards its place on the Tasmanian Heritage Registry, having been a makeshift home for mine workers and a welcome refuge for drovers, hunters and bushwalkers.

Parks and Wildlife Service (PWS) Overland Track ranger-in-charge, Rob Lawrence, said hunters and snarers had been using the Old Pelion Hut for some years and when the Overland Track was cut in 1935, they shared the shelter with an increasing number of bushwalkers.

The Mountain Huts Preservaion Society has taken part in several working bees undertaken by PWS  (from April 2015 to June 2017) to ensure walkers can enjoy the hut for many more years to come. Restoration work included re-stumping, levelling the floor and replacing floor boards, chimney repairs, restoration of the stone hearth in front of the fireplace, wall cladding and general repairs to reinvigorate the Hut.

An informal gathering at Old Pelion Hut, organised by PWS, took place on Saturday 18 November 2017. About 40 people, including all MHPS members who had contributed to the works programs, made the trek into the isolated hut to attend the celebration. To create authenticity and to set the mood, Society Secretary Ian Hayes, dressed in period costume to represent pioneer bushman Bert Nichols – and Fiona Rice (who compiled a storybook of Old Pelion’s history to be permanently housed in the Hut) dressed as Ida Smithies, wife of the legendary bushwalker and photographer, Fred Smithies.