Bally Mountain

Activities:

Location:

Bonogin Rd, Bonogin. View our adventure map for the trailhead location.

Description:

I have a particular fondness for this mountain and surrounding area.

Back in the early 2010’s, this mountain wasn’t visited anywhere near as often as it is today. It was unmarked, public land was patchy (the most obvious route up often skirted very close to private land), and aside from the geocaching crowd and some keen bushwalkers, it just wasn’t all that well known. Naturally, being the curious types that we are, a couple of friends and I came up with a planned route and we bush-bashed our way up to Big Bally - this first ascent for us was via Little Bally (to Big Bally’s NE) and the razorback connecting these two summits. This route was particularly fun, as it involved a fair amount of bush-bashing, a tame but still exhilarating rock scramble, the razorback section, and a loose-as-all-buggery hike up a really steep hill. And then we had to find our way up what appeared to be an impassable cliff (spoiler: we found a way), all while navigating by headtorch so that we could be on the summit for sunrise.

Anyway, that first ascent up Big Bally sticks in my memory as one of my favourite local adventures, as we did this all before breakfast.

Fast-forward to 2025, and the most frequented route up Big Bally is very different to the way we chose: it’s now signposted by the City of Gold Coast (the land managers) and it directly ascends Big Bally from the west without visiting Little Bally or traversing the razorback. While this marked route is pretty relentlessly uphill, it is doable for most hikers (although there is one section of rock scrambling that will test some people).

I won’t bore you with a step-by-step description of the trail: the summit trail is now marked, and more info is available on the City of Gold Coast website.

My primary piece of advice is to attempt this for sunrise when a clear morning is forecast - it’s quite possible the best sunrise you will see from within the Gold Coast hinterland.

Sunrise from the Bally summit. Pretty special.

The razorback connecting Little and Big Bally.

Million dollar views, for basically free (bar a little effort).

Boyds Butte, Mount Cougal, Wollumbin and the Springbrook Plateau - all viewed from Bally Mountain.