Date: 05/04/15 to 15/04/15
Location: Nelson Lakes National Park
Trip Leader: Matt Battley
Trampers: Sophie Jenkins, Blair Ramsdale, Hamish Buckley and Josh Alexander
11 Days, 6(ish) passes and innumerable face-plants by Matt. Looking at topomap.co.nz is really dangerous...
It was mid-March and Blair and I were trying to do our Engineering design project (truly!), when miraculously the computer gained a mind of its own and switched us to looking at a topo map of the Nelson Lakes area. From there we were doomed; everything was far too tempting around there, and Sophie, Blair and I realised that we had surprisingly little to do over the Easter break. We thus hatched a plan for an 11-day epic to make our way from St Arnaud to Lewis Pass, taking in some impressive passes like Waiau, Thompson and D’Urville. It didn’t take much persuading to get Hamish and Josh along, so before we knew it Easter found us in Nelson.
We spent most of Saturday getting to St Arnaud where we’d decided to camp before beginning to tramp on Easter Sunday. However, there was just enough time left for the obligatory jump of NZ’s most photographed jetty (at lake Rotoiti), beginning the oral rendition of Pratchett/Gaiman’s magnificent ‘Good Omens’ and debating whether it was a good idea for Blair to skinny-dip behind the wedding party at the lake. With everything packed and a hearty fish-n-chips warming the stomachs, we drifted off to sleep excited by the adventure about to begin...
Day 1: The adventure begins
The weather gods were smiling so far. As the impromptu Blair Easter-Bunny distributed Eastereggs (it was Easter Sunday, after all), an atmospheric thin mist clung to the surface of Lake Rotoiti, leaving the sky gloriously clear. Day 1 involved an 800m/2600ft (vert) grind up the Pinchgut Track followed by a traverse across Robert’s Ridge all the way up to Lake Angelus. I should point out at this juncture that all heights will be supplied in both meters and feet as this was a lively debate throughout. We certainly envied the day-walkers during the initial climb as our packs weighed in the mid to high 20kgs margin (11 days worth of food is even more when someone doesn’t believe in dehtdrating it), however the increasingly incredible view on the way up made every metre worth it. It was during this climb that Hamish obtained his ‘Gandalf Stick’, which survived the entire trip, despite some deliberate and accidental foreshortening.
Splitting off from the day-walkers as we carried up along Robert Ridge, the terrain became far rockier, with patches of green spattered among the basins on the Travers side. It’s quite a rewarding ridgeline for its accessibility and really not too taxing once you’re past the Pinchgut section. Julius Summit makes a nice 5min side-trip to get a wider view of the track.
As the light began to play on the grassy basins, we noticed how much it looked like Warg territory and developed our theories about the best way to cut down the mightiest tree in a forest with a Herring.
Nearing the end of a reasonably long first day we finally climbed over the last ridgeline to gain our first view of Lake Angelus and Angelus Hut. Nestled between Mt Angelus and the basin formed by Lake Angelus, the hut looked incredibly inviting, but we had already decided to be stingy and camp instead. It was our intention to carry on down the track for a while and maybe drop down to Hinapouri Tarn to get out of view of the hut (as is usually the ruling), however as luck would have it just a few 100m down the track there was a specially designated DoC ‘freedom camping site’, on the other side of the lake from the hut. It was the best camping spot we could have hoped for in that area. As the sun set on day 1 we quickly threw up the tents and chowed down on the first of the dinners of dried meat and bread which Blair had prepared for us.
Day 2: The day the weather started to hate us
Day 2 was a much shorter day, where we only needed to drop down from Lake Angelus via the Mt Cedric route to Sabine Hut on the shores of Lake Rotoroa (which interestingly is 170m lower than Lake Rotoiti, where we began – all that hard work for nothing!). We had planned a side-trip up Mt Angelus to fill in the morning, but the clouds kept teasing us, playing on the summit. Ascertaining that going right to the summit might be unwise (with next to no view) we instead went to explore the aptly-named Sunset saddle. Dropping down to Hinapouri Tarn to get across, we climbed towards the red-rocked saddle, with Josh stopping at any large enough tarns to show off his rockskipping prowess.
Eventually the mist began to find us, so we decided it was time to sidle back around to the camp and follow the track while we could still see it. The Cedric Route is tremendous fun, with some open rocky ridge-travel with reasonably steep drops off either side, before you drop down and down and down the Mt Cedric Track (about a km of drop in only 2.5km at the end – it’s a known knee-destroyer). I would recommend pack llamas for taking the load off the knees – apparently you can get them from Hanmer Springs. Of course there are probably really nice views all along the ridge, but the weather had decided to be evil by then, so it was mildly unpleasant, windy and very rainy for the whole day. Interestingly we saw a large school group out on a school trip going in the opposite direction – it’s clear that South Island schools are way more epic than silly Auckland ones.
Once we got back down out of the wind and the fog though our first glimpse of Rotoroa was glorious, and the later swim in the lake was surprisingly warm given the freezing ridgeline travel. Sabine Hut is massive, which gave us all the chance to dry off and spread out on the floor to try to persuade our knees not to hate us anymore.
Day 3: Nice day for a walk in the park
Nah, not really – the weather was still crap. I proved this by only taking 1 photo between the Huts this day (compare that to the first day when I took about 260). But day 3 was quite a ramble, just an easy 5hr tramp following the Sabine River up the valley with ~120m/390ft climb over the whole day. The river was impressively high, but you cross it using two excellent swing bridges, so the track can be done in pretty much any weather. The original plan had been to potentially carry on to Blue Lake Hut this day to save ourselves some time but we spoke to some of the trampers coming the other way (who seemed a little freaked) and decided against it, as apparently the side-streams further up were huge. We were quite content to eat pasta, bacon and apple pie before playing 500 in front of the fire. Mmmm, that was such a good fireplace.
Day 4: Towards the clearest water in the Southern Hemisphere
By the next day thankfully the sky had cleared (slightly), which had allowed the river and sidestreams to drop considerably. Since we only had to get to Blue Lake it was a pretty relaxed day, with only about 3.5hrs of tramping (though 530m/1740ft climb). It’s a really cool piece of track up to Blue Lake – though we’d be more realistic to call it a stream on that day – wandering up through nice Beech forest (and dodging massive branches that tried ‘wandering through’ Hamish - falling just a few meters away), travelling up over old avalanche debris, and watching the incredible waterfalls fall down off the Mahanga Range were all pretty incredible. I honestly think this piece of track is better in the wet, as the waterfalls really make the views spectacular. The size of the rocks knocked down in the avalanches was more than a little worrying though, particularly as Sophie and I considered that the last Jenkins/Battley attempt of this St Arnaud – Lewis Pass route some 30 years ago was done in August, around when some of these avalanche routes would have been active. It wasn’t the last time the ‘why on Earth were they trying to do this in winter’ thought passed my mind...
Upon arriving at the Hut we quickly dropped our packs and headed behind the hut to the lake itself – proclaimed to be ‘the clearest lake in the world’. Sadly its clarity had been compromised slightly by the massive amounts of wet stuff that had fallen recently, but it was nonetheless stunning with the depth you could see. Taking the ‘no bathing’ sign to mean ‘no using soap’ the majority of the party took the opportunity to have a quick dip (don’t worry, we didn’t pollute it with our clothes) before retreating back to the hut to get as close to the fire as possible without quite setting ourselves on fire. Out the window Mt Franklin called temptingly from the clouds, but that would have to wait for another trip. This night at Blue Lake Hut we saw the last people we would see for 6 days, which was probably a good thing considering Josh and Hamish were already starting a mattress fort war.
Day 5: Goodbye people, hello passes
Just when it mattered, the weather began to play ball again. Day 5 would see us leave the well defined Sabine Valley tracks and wander up the Waiau Pass route, over the 1870m/6135ft Waiau Pass itself and end up in the head of the Waiau Valley. The route starts up between the lake and the hut, and climbs its way up to the beautiful Lake Constance. Crossing the rockfields just above the level of Lake Constance, we could see a thin mist oozing over from the other side of the main divide, but it was clear that such wispy remnants were burning off quickly under an otherwise perfect blue sky.
Climbing up a scree slope from the flats, the route follows above the bluffs on the true left of the lake to avoid the dangerous cliffs on the true right. Looking back there are incredible views of the Mahanga Range and Franklin Ridge, forming the top of the Sabine Valley, while ahead imposing (and looking impassably steep) the head of the Sabine valley reared its head. There are some good steep undulations before you get back down to lake level on the other side, but we knew we were only just warming up for the rest of the day. Stopping at Lake Constance for just long enough to admire the view (and for Blair to claim another body of water by skinny-dipping in it), we then set off to attack the pass itself.
Waiau pass is about 470m/1540ft above Lake Constance and you do most of that all at once (see the route diagram). I naturally was ridiculously happy to spend forever going up a steep hill. Nonetheless, everyone enjoyed the increasingly magnificent view back down the Sabine valley. As we neared the top cloud suddenly swept over us again, having chased us up the valley, meaning that as we crossed the main divide for the first of 3 times on the trip, we couldn’t see any of the view. Unless you count rocks and nice thick cloud as a view.
Coming down the other side was a little rugged (it would be easier in the other direction), so Gollum/Legolas kindly kept Gandalf’s staff safe for himself until the valley floor. Interestingly, as we dropped into the head of the Waiau Valley we walked into a clear spot, sandwiched between the valley fog below and mountain cloud above, so we managed to have a quick glimpse across to Thompson pass, our next major aim.
Finding a camping spot in the head of the Waiau valley proved surprisingly difficult given how many rocks were around and the fact that it was a little bit of a wind-tunnel. Not an awful amount of sleep was got by anyone that night thanks to the wind, especially as Sophie’s Citadel already had rather interestingly shaped poles from a previous windswept trip.
Day 6: Going Nowhere #1
Not a lot was done this day. We needed good visibility every day we were planning to head over some passes, and the next planned day involved two of them. Thankfully we had built 3 weather/ rest-days into the original plan and had only used one so far when we took longer to get to Blue Lake Hut. So we basically spent this entire day watching the weather, eating and playing cards while hoping against hope that the next day would be clear so that we didn’t have to just escape down the rather less interesting Waiau Valley. Since it was the visibility problem in this exact place which had thwarted the 1980s AUTC winter attempt of Peter Jenkins and Mark Battley, Sophie and I were obviously even keener to do the passes, thus finishing some unfinished family business.
Day 7: Into the Unknown – Valley of the Mountain Goats.
With the fortuitous coming of visibility, we were cleared to finally leave all official tracks and routes behind to attack Thompson and D’Urville Passes on the way into the Matakitaki Valley. Leaving our dining room behind, we crossed the Waiau ‘River’ (more like a stream that high up) and climbed up and across some scree slopes to above the bluffs on the way to Lake Thompson. Following up the head of one of the tributaries leads you up an easy climb to reach the lake itself, which also rewards you with an awesome view back to Waiau Pass.
There had been a distinct Southerly change, so we didn’t wait by the lake for long, but instead carried on around the back of it, slightly away from Thompson Pass itself. Having spoken to a few people who had done the route before, Sophie had heard that going over the real Thompson Pass left you in a really freaky position to sidle around the first bit of upper D’Urville Valley. We would apparently be better to cross slightly to the South-East over an 1860m/6100ft fake Thompson Pass.
With a bit of route-finding this worked perfectly, and we could later see the frightening section we thankfully avoided. What’s more, the view from the pass gave us a fantastic vista both all the way back to Waiau Pass and all the way to D’Urville pass – our next aim. With terrible rock puns made and various vocabularies voiced down into the new valley, we descended over a pile of schist to a good place to sidle around the head of the valley. Such sidling was excellent practice for being a mountain goat, a skill which Sophie has perfected much more than the rest of us. Everyone negotiated the steep scree slopes well however and we soon enough found ourselves at D’Urville Pass itself.
So as not to allow us a clear view of the Matakitaki, the weather then decided it was high-time to catch up with us again. We crossed the 1820m/5970ft pass in cloud. Not far down from the pass we noticed some small patches of snow which we were half tempted to put our ice-axes in just to prove we’d seen some, but as it turned out that was far from the last time we spotted some white stuff... There’s only really one sensible route into the Matakitaki from there as most of it is cliffs, but if you stick to your left on the flatter section when you are descending you should come across a handy chute, which – while quite steep – is ideal for a quick but controlled descent.
The Matakitaki is a beautiful valley right from the start. As you follow the river down (dodging rocks one minute and speargrass the next), waterfalls flow down the steep sides of the upper valley, making the drizzle seem to have a purpose for once. We weren’t sure how long this day would take at first, so thought we might just get to the bushline and make camp, but we were making good time, so everyone was really keen to push on to the nice warm East Matakitaki Hut further down the valley. We were pleasantly surprised to find bits and pieces of ground-track down this section of the river, most likely formed by a combination of deer and the 3-4 other groups who try this route every year. Such partial tracks make bush travel far less demoralising at the end of a long day. Arriving at East Matakitaki Hut (920m/3020ft) just before dark (and not quite losing Matt thanks to millions of faceplants) we found a quaint old forestry hut by the side of the river with a glorious (if admittedly very smoky) open fireplace.
Day 8: Bridge Crossing 101
Having made such good progress the day before, all that was left on today’s agenda was a pleasant 3-4hr wander down-valley to Bobs Hut (apostrophe not included). With a relaxed start, the only real things of note in the day were situated around the 3-wire bridge crossing near Matakitaki Forks. Interesting crossings at the best of times, Josh decided to make it even more of a challenge by dropping his ice-axe halfway across. Quite miraculously the bridge actually caught it, which was especially lucky given the tumultuous waters below. Josh couldn’t do much with all of his stuff still on, so after he reached the other side Sophie valiantly crossed back to halfway and rescued the ice-axe with her leg. With an ice-axe rescue completed, we thought we’d had most of the excitement for the day, right up until Blair got swarmed by evil wasps. We were all glad to reach Bobs hut after a surprisingly eventful short day. Bobs Hut is a very nice hut indeed, in the same style as East Matakitaki Hut, but set in an even nicer spot, looking out over the higher Spenser Mountains. But geez was it cold...
Day 9: Going Nowhere #2 – The Winter Edition
Day 9 dawned rather cloudily, so it was clear that we weren’t going anywhere, as going any further involved heading over the 1840m/6040ft 3 Tarn Pass back to the other side of the main divide, for which visibility was crucial. It was clear however that the night really had been as cold as we thought, as most of the surrounding mountains had a fresh sprinkling of snow above the bushline. Then, sitting in the Hut finishing Good Omens and eating by the fire, we suddenly noticed that the returning rain was starting to get thicker again. And floating rather than falling! Excited, the Aucklanders couldn’t believe their luck, running out into the soon heavy snow. So much for the pitiful spots we’d seen before by the passes, we had the real stuff now! We found out later that the various dumps went down to about 300m that day (and the next night), and the hut was at ~800m, meaning everything got covered. Suddenly we felt very justified in bringing our ice-axes. As the day progressed this first dump gradually melted where we were, but we needn’t have worried about missing out, as an even bigger dump came that night.
Day 10: From Narnia to a mountain paradise
You know those glorious days you get right after some huge dumps of snow? That was this day. After a huge overnight dump, everything from hut-level up was covered in a blanket of snow, making the surrounding bush feel like Narnia itself. The route followed up the West Branch of the
Matakitaki River, awarding us with fantastic views of the now snow-capped and oh-so-inviting Faerie Queene and Gloriana Peak. The Bush soon gave way to your classic South Island river valley, which only improved the views. I swear snow makes everything look 1000x cooler (pardon the pun). As we gazed towards the fake head of the valley, which appeared as a solid wall of ice, we discussed which Discworld characters we all reminded each other of, having much earlier settled on our LoTR personas. The route wanders further up the stream before you have to go high for a little while to avoid a gorgy bush section shortly before the main kink. There’s quite a lot of speargrass around here too, which I’m sure Blair can tell you all about... Just past the bend we stopped for an earlyish lunch, allowing us to have a quick snow-ball fight before venturing further.
By the time we hit the 1300m contour, the track had disappeared again and the snow was starting to get considerably deeper, which slowed us down a lot. The original plan was to go over the pass and back down to Ada Pass Hut, but it became increasingly obvious that we might run out of daylight before managing that. Most crucial was getting across the pass while the weather was perfect, and handily there was a good sheltered flat section just on the other side of the pass according to the map. Getting all the way up to the Three Tarns was a real slog, but such an incredible piece of the country that you couldn’t help but enjoy yourself. Upon arriving there you have to be quite careful to line up the three tarns to not accidentally take the much nicer-looking fake passes, as these turn quite nasty on the other side. The real one is a little surprising however, as it certainly wouldn’t be the one you’d guess.
The view from the top really is something else, especially when it’s covered in snow. The rest of the Southern Alps spread infinitely into the distance, just calling to be followed, and framing them are your own Spenser Mountains, with two more tarns directly below.
Descending back into Canterbury from the West, we came onto the wide ledge where we’d set up camp for the night, noting that, sure enough, it would be too icy to descend wisely tonight. But one thing was clear, camping in the snow at 1700m/5680ft was going to be very cold indeed...
Day 11: Back to Civilisation
And it was. Really really cold. About -15o C of cold apparently, with -20 windchill (another thing the parents cheerfully told us afterwards). With very little sleep we were happy indeed to see the dawn, but decreed it too cold to get up at least until the sun reached the tents. Overnight drinkbottles froze solid while they were being used as pillows, socks turned into solid lumps and as we got up we discovered that our boots were completely frozen as well, requiring huge amounts of boiling water to get them malleable enough to even get on. However we eventually unfroze ourselves and the gear sufficiently to begin negotiating our way down the reasonably steep slopes to the bushline.
The snow conditions were perfect, other than a few icy sections, and we were lucky enough to have been granted another perfectly clear day. We quite rapidly lost the 700 vertical meters down to Ada Pass Hut (hardly a pass – it’s just at 1008m/3310ft about 250m away horizontally from the hut) where we devoured a huge lunch of leftovers. Now we only had the stroll down the St James Walkway to get us to Lewis Pass. THERE WERE BOARDWALKS. Well maintained tracks felt like cheating a bit after over a week of epicness, but I think we were all secretly pleased at the easier going. Plus we were really pushing it for time given our shuttle pick-up. Thus as the 11th day disappeared we raced down the walkway we dodged cannibals through cannibal gorge and gradually felt Lewis Pass drawing closer.
Then suddenly we were there. Lewis Pass, end of the line. Although the mountains continue South we unfortunately had to leave them, needing to return back to the big smoke.
Though that next mountain range did look quite tempting... I wonder what it would be like to go from Lewis Pass to Arthur’s Pass.... Hmmm
Author: Matt Battley
Comments