We recently asked MJ readers to write about their favourite local mountain, why they are special, and why they matter.

Here is the second installment: from Mick Webster. His reflection is on The Twins, a lovely double mountain just south of the Great Alpine road, close to Mt Hotham.

The Twins

After a lifetime back to the 1960s roaming the mountains I’ve decided on my absolute favorite – and I just hope this doesn’t make it too popular!

It has to be The Twins, a wonderful little surprisingly Alpine-like peak just to the West off the Alpine Way from Mt St Bernard. You only get glimpses of it from the road up from Harrietville to Hotham, and then you have to find some parking to walk back 3km from the Dargo Rd intersection. The last 250m climb to the summit is a gut-buster that deters 4wders along the road, from any direction off the Twins Rd, but the views and the feeling of isolation are rewarding. Just above the tree-line at 1702 metres for the West Twin (the slightly lower East Twin is 20 metres lower, still over the tree line), the views are  magnificent, back to the Hotham-Loch lump, around into Gippsland over the Blue Rag range, then along the long tangled ridge of the Divide West to Mt Murray (the fearsome ‘Dry Barrys’) with Howitt, Cross-cut Saw and Speculation and the jagged top of Cobbler on the horizon, and around to the crouched shape of Mt Buffalo.

There are a few campsites on top to the North of the summit, and between West and East Twin, and if the weather stays settled you will be rewarded with amazing sunsets and sunrises. Water is available in a tiny creek running across the 4wd track girdling the mountain to the North – heaving it up to the summit will give you some exercise. Chances are you will meet no-one on top, except maybe for a lunatic Alps Walking Track through-walker heading for the flesh-pots of Hotham, or the long haul to Walhalla. Sometimes the small neglected mountains are the most rewarding!