Location
Mount Baw Baw is about 120 km east of Melbourne and 50 km north of the Latrobe Valley. The mountain itself is one of several peaks on the Baw Baw Plateau, a long plateau tending north-east. Other peaks on the plateau include Mount Whitelaw, Mount St Phillack (the highest), Mount Mueller, Mount Tyers, Mount Kernot and Mount St Gwinear. The plateau itself is isolated from most of Victoria's high country by the Thomson and Aberfeldy Rivers and tributaries of the La Trobe River, including the Tanjil and Tyers Rivers to the south.
The Baw Baw massif consists of a late Devonian granodiorite pluton. There is relatively little relief on the plateau itself, the highest point (Mount St. Phillack) reaching 1,567 metres. The lower slopes of the plateau are covered in montane eucalypt forest and tall forest, and creek valleys have cool temperate rainforest of myrtle beech, Nothofagus cunninghamii. Above 1,200 metres snow gum woodland occur, grading into subalpine grasslands and shrublands above 1,300 metres. Much of this subalpine zone is included in the 133 km² Baw Baw National Park. The Baw Baw Village ski resort is technically outside the National Park.
The climate of the plateau itself is subalpine, with an average annual precipitation of 1,900 mm. Snow covers the plateau from June to September.
It is thought that Baron Ferdinand von Mueller made the first recorded European ascent of Baw Baw in 1860, naming Christmas Creek on one of his major collecting expeditions. It was on this trip that he collected the Baw Baw Berry, Wittsteinia vacciniacea. There are two routes up the mountain; one via Noojee and Icy Creek which is windy and another dirt road via Erica.
Mount Baw Baw is home to the critically endangered Baw Baw frog.
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