Windy Tops

Tag: change of plans

  • Trip: Up Hector. Down Hector.

    Labour weekend of 2013 is meant to be a three and a half day treat from Otaki Forks, up to Hector and around a loop involving Neill-Winchcombe, Maungahuka and the Tararua Peaks. The weather forecast doesn’t look that great. Some rain, but more significantly there’s strong alpine wind predicted at speeds of between 70 and 110 km/hour as the weekend progresses, potentially getting worse. No doubt Tararua tramping at its best. Uhh, yeah…. We may need a backup plan.

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    Craig climbing Field Peak.

    Dates: 25th – 26th October, 2013
    Location: Tararua Forest Park, Otaki Forks.
    People: Craig, Debbie, WeiMin and me.
    Huts visited: Field Hut (1 night), Kime Hut (0 nights), Parawai Lodge (0 nights).
    Intended route: (From Friday to Monday) Otaki Forks up to Hector (Field Hut on Friday night), then Winchcombe, Neill, and navigate down spur direct to Neill Forks Hut for Saturday night. Up past Maungahuka, Tararua Peaks and back to Kime for Sunday night. Return to Otaki Forks on Monday.
    Alternate route: Continue beyond Hector to Aston, then to Elder Biv for Saturday night. Past Renata and Maymorn Junction on Sunday, then up to Kapakapanui for Sunday night. Follow ridge along and past Pukeatua (.812) on Monday, back to Otaki Forks via Fenceline.
    Actual route: Up Hector (almost). Down Hector.
    [Photos]

    [Download GPX file] [View GPX on NZTopoMap]
    This post is a trip report. You can find other trip reports about other places linked from the Trip Reports Page, or by browsing the Trip Reports Category.

    All four of us convene at platform 9, after work on Friday night, and we’re away soon after. There’s already some dissent about the planned meal for tomorrow night. Debbie doesn’t much like the taste of kumura and WeiMin just doesn’t want to carry four of them. During our Waikanae dinner stop, WeiMin rushes away to New World and buys a 500 gram packet of rice. That’ll be enough to replace about half of the former ingredients.

    I think WeiMin’s brought his own dinner from home. Debbie, Craig and I wander back to one of the fish and chip shops—the one that’s furthest away from where we parked, but which also has the most customers. It’s been a while since I’ve had fish and chips, but going tramping is a good excuse to pig out. Besides, we have to climb up 700 vertical metres before sleeping tonight.
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  • Trip: Heritage to Tunupo (and back)

    We had an impressive weekend planned, more or less the reverse of my previous attempt at a similar trip several years ago. Sadly, it failed in a similar way, except this time the method of failure was a pressing sou-easterly that made tops travel extremely uncomfortable. It was another victim of the Ruahine winter. Maybe if I were smarter I’d take a hint, but I know from experience that it’s still possible to get great winter trips in the Ruahine.

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    Dates: 30th August – 1st September, 2013
    Location: Ruahine Forest Park, Petersons Road (Heritage).
    People: Craig, Alistair, Sarah and me.
    Huts visited: Heritage Hut (1 night) — aka Alice Nash Memorial Heritage Lodge.
    Intended route: In via Heritage Lodge, head up to Tunupo (.1568), north-east almost to Otumore (.1519), then south-east through the Pohangina Saddle to Longview Hut. South-south-west past Rocky Knob (.1226) and Te Pohatu (.1132), and down to Leon Kinvig Hut for Saturday evening. Up to Toka (.1519) on Sunday, north-north-east to Tunupo (.1568), and back down and out via Heritage Lodge.
    Actual route: To the top of Tunupo, then we turned back rather than risk a very cold and strong snow-heavy southerly.
    [Photos]
    [map:https://93a12629bf06.ngrok-free.app/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/20130901-heritage-to-tunupo.gpx%5D

    This post is a trip report. You can find other trip reports about other places linked from the Trip Reports Page, or by browsing the Trip Reports Category.

    Our weekend’s forecast wasn’t entirely promising, but a strong southerly was predicted to blow through, with luck, by early Saturday, which should enable some good, calm weather for tops travel.

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  • Trip: Powell, Totara Flats and Sayers

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    Saturday night sunset
    on Totara Flats.

    This is meant to be a tramping club trip, though really it’s just Éamonn and me. We’re the “social” trip, but I think people bailed on the social idea when it became clearer that we’d be pack-horses for everyone else who’s converging on Totara Flats from various directions. Between us we’ve decided the most “social” way of getting to Totara Flats will be up to Powell and over High Ridge. I’ve decided my hobby on this trip will be collecting Department of Conservation Asset Numbers. Asset number bagging is set to be the next big thing once everyone’s gotten bored of hut bagging, and I figure I’m getting a head-start on the crowd.

    Dates: 10th – 12th December, 2010
    Location: Tararua Forest Park, Holdsworth Road End.
    People: Éamonn and me.
    Huts visited: Holdsworth Lodge (0 nights), Mountain House Shelter (0 nights), Powell Hut (1 night), Totara Flats Hut (1 night), Sayers Hut (0 nights).
    Intended route: Walk to Powell Hut on Friday night, then over High Ridge to Totara Flats for Saturday night, then back out to Holdsworth Road.
    Actual route: Powell Hut on Friday night, but to Totara Flats via the more direct route. Over the Waiohine to Sayers Hut on Sunday, the up to spot-height 772 and along ridge to the north past 768, and eventually back to the track above Totara Creek. Then out to Holdsworth Road via Pig Flat, and down to the Atiwhakatu Track.
    [Photos]

    [Download GPX file] [View GPX on NZTopoMap]
    This post is a trip report. You can find other trip reports about other places linked from the Trip Reports Page, or by browsing the Trip Reports Category.
    5267715733_b325f6bb97_m-5830903
    The Atiwhakatu Valley
    from near Rocky Lookout.

    Friday, 8pm: We’ve arrived at the Holdsworth road-end, the weather’s not too flash. Best to get going.

    8.55pm: It’s not quite raining yet, but a strong nor-westerly is blowing. I’ve just been nearly blown off my feet near the Rocky Lookout. Not at the lookout, but on the track below it. The wind just came screaming alongside the ridge out of nowhere. It’s eerie and discomforting.

    This’ll be bad for Steve and Richard, who were planning to walk and swim down the Waiohine Gorge. We’ve checked the book and they signed in at Holdsworth Lodge earlier today, headed straight for Waiohine Forks. We’ll be okay for ourselves, by comparison. I have the rain all sussed since I bought myself a brand new tramping umbrella earlier today. It’s in my pack, and may just prove to be the best $14.99 I’ve ever spent.

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  • Staying in Taihape

    I went through an anticlimatic experience on the weekend. Richard, Amanda and I were meaning to get to Wakelings Hut in the Ruahines, starting from the end of Makino Road on the western side, which is about the next road north of Kawhatau Base. I found myself not feeling too well. After being up for much of the night between Friday and Saturday as we stayed (by arrangement) on one of the nearby farms, I decided I wasn’t exactly fit to go.

    In some ways this worked out for the better. With oncoming weather it was uncertain if Amanda and Richard could get all the way around to Wakelings Hut and back over the Mokai Patea as planned, so with the new arrangements I was able to drive the car around to Kawhatau Base and collect them the following day. As I waited, I spent two exciting days in Taihape, which is a nice little town and I saw three steam trains drive through it, two of which were the Overlander and one of which was a special excursion by Mainline Steam. Unfortunately it was one of the few weekends in Taihape without a gumboot throwing competition, and for most of the time I did still wish I’d brought a book to read.
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  • Re-living The Sutch Search (Part 3 of 3)

    Following from part one and part two.

    “It is, therefore, reasonable that the actions of Trampers who become—or are believed to be—lost should be thrown open to examination, and, if necessary, to criticism. When a party that was expected to return in about three days does not return for about fifteen days, and then says, it was “never lost,” a difficult precedent is created.”

    —The Evening Post, 1st May 1933.
    From Evening Post, Issue 100, 1 May 1933, Page 10 (additional):
    RECALL OF SEARCHERS
    A LONG PROCESS

    It is expected that it will be several days before all the searchers can he recalled. A party consisting of Messrs. H. Anderson, B. McGregor, and W. E. Davidson, of the Tararua Tramping Club, and Mr. F. A. McNeil, of the Radio Emergency Corps, left Wellington yesterday for the mountain house, and will remain there until the withdrawal of the search parties has been completed.

    About thirty-five members of the Tararua Tramping Club and a number of others belonging to kindred clubs are still on the ranges, and arrangements have been made with the Railway Department for trains to sound three blasts on their whistles between Otaki and Levin on the west side and Carterton and Masterton on the east side as an indication to the searchers that they should return. It is stated that train whistles can be heard from almost any point on the ranges under normal circumstances.

    About 150 trampers have taken part in the search. Most of them belong to the Tararua Club, the other clubs represented being Paua, Victoria College, Hutt Valley, Levin-Waiopehu, Manawatu, Carterton, Wairarapa, and Masterton.

    The four missing people were finally safe, but a lot of cleaning up and analysis was still to be done. It took about three days for the last search party to return from the range, but criticism of the group began immediately, firstly in an editorial context on the same day in which their return was reported, and then with additional criticism from members of the public, fanned by the media. At least one searcher had sustained an injured foot, potentially serious in the back-country of the 1930s, and this at the very least highlighted that those who obliged others to search for them can put those people at risk. Comments that had been made on a whim by the rescued party about “never being lost” were now being taken out of context, and were received by some as insulting.

    Fred Vosseler, who’d played a large part in organising the search effort, made comments while wearing his authoritative hat as President of the recently formed Federated Mountain Clubs organisation, publicly criticising virtually everything the group was reported to have done. In a war of written words waged through letters to the editor, his criticism provoked responses from the party members, who claimed that he’d been mis-led by media reports and inaccurate assumptions about their situation.

    Eventually the arguments died down and fell out of the media, and what followed was a larger analysis, now beginning to be recorded in minutes of meetings and annual reports, of how the search effort had worked and what needed to be improved upon and done differently before there was need for another search of a similar nature. The structure for New Zealand’s largely voluntary and club-based Land Search and Rescue system that was set up in the 1930s, following what was partially learned from this event, lasted for 70 years.
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  • Re-living The Sutch Search (Part 2 of 3)

    This post follows part 1 and is continued in part 3.

    From Evening Post, Issue 100, 1 May 1933, Page 7:
    TRAMPERS FOUND IN THE TARARUAS

    After a fortnight in the ranges

    AFTER A FORTNIGHT IN THE RANGES.— The four trampers who have been travelling through the Tararua Ranges since Easter Saturday, having been delayed by bad weather and swollen rivers. From left, Mr. A. H. O’Keefe, Miss M. Williams, Dr. W. B. Sutch, and Mr. E. Hill.

    On the 30th of April, 1933, a large group on a Sunday walk, from a recently formed Carterton Tramping Club, happened to look over the Waiohine River. They spotted a party of four trampers on the far side, trying and failing to wade across. The group was soon recognised as the four missing people who had left Te Matawai Hut more than two weeks before. Once they’d made their way to the nearby cable-way and been ferried across, they were quickly fed and given warm cups of tea.

    The story of the group’s plight was finally known. Bert O’Keefe had slipped whilst sidling the Broken Axe Pinnacles, after wind prevented them from going over. He fell about 40 feet, dragging Eric Hill with him as he fell. Mr Hill was protected when he fell onto his pack, but Mr O’Keefe sustained a gash to his face and was unconscious for about an hour. From then on he wore a balaclava perpetually, to protect the wound. Despite this injury, the unforeseen problem brewing was the loss of time. With two fewer hours of daylight, they were unable to reach Holdsworth before dark, and had to camp on the bush-line.

    They had expected they might need to camp somewhere for a night, but the weather then deteriorated severely, bringing snow and biting winds to the tops that would prevent them from accessing what were typically referred to as trampers’ highways of the time. Their situation became serious, especially when the weather lasted for the better part of two weeks. Having left with about two days of food between them and anticipated no more than a single night out, they were faced with miserable and extremely slow travel, attempting to escape through land below the bush-line that was not well known and (at the time) barely tracked at all.
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  • Re-living The Sutch Search (Part 1 of 3)

    This post is followed by part 2 and part 3.

    “There are so many possibilities in regard to the whereabouts of the missing party that anything in the nature of “combing the country” is out of the question. The most that can be done is to investigate a few of the probable directions they may have taken.”

    —The Evening Post, 26th April 1933.

    After the recent post regarding the search for Esmond Kime, I’ve decided that the New Zealand National Library’s Papers Past service is a treasure trove of interesting history.

    Another historic event that I’ve been keen to discover more about is what’s come to be known as The Sutch Search, which occurred in the Tararuas during the latter part of April in 1933. I’m posting this in three parts over a few days (see also part 2 and part 3), because there are so many newspaper articles that it’s a lot to take in. Part one covers the search effort, part two covers the return of the party, and part three covers the media storm and arguments that followed about responsibilities of those in the wilderness.

    I’m unsure why it’s popularly called The Sutch Search. Bill Sutch was only one of four missing people and he wasn’t considered to be leading the trip. It may be because he became high profile decades later in 1974 when he was accused, unsuccessfully and with no presented evidence, of trying to pass secrets to the Soviet Union. A more complete biography of Dr Sutch, although one which doesn’t even mention his influence in tramping, can be found here. Forty years prior to 1974, Bill Sutch was a young tramper exploring the mostly-unexplored Tararua Range. When he and three other people went missing, they became the subject of one of the most significant land search and rescue operations in New Zealand’s history.

    From Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 95, 24 April 1933, Page 5:
    A VIEW OF THE TARARUAS

    G. L. Adkin Photo.
    LOST IN THE TARARUAS.—Looking across the Tararua Range, the area in which four trampers, including a lady, are reported to be lost. The photograph shows the Mitre-Holdsworth ridge of the Tararua Range, looking NNW from Mount Holdsworth. Arete Peak (4935ft) and Mount Dundas (4944 ft) are seen in the extreme distance, with The Mitre (5154 ft) on the right and Mount McGregor (5080 ft) and Angle Knob on left.

    On Saturday 15th April 1933, four young trampers—Mr Eric Hill, Miss Morva Williams, Mr Bert O’Keefe and Dr. Bill Sutch—left Te Matawai Hut near Levin, and set out to follow a route to Mountain House, below Mt. Holdsworth. At a time when the northern Tararuas were only beginning to be explored, this route had been completed several times in summer, often in a single day. They wanted to see if it would be possible in winter.

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  • Trip: Crow Hut, McKinnon Hut and general confusion

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    Above McKinnon Hut.

    Getting out of Crow Hut right now is one of the more awkward climbs from a valley I’ve personally had. We more or less slid down the hill-side yesterday morning, persistent rain apparently making the topsoil absolutely sodden. A year ago I bought the cheapest Scarpas I could find, part of an experiment with getting cheap boots, but the soles are the best I’ve had on any boots to date and I’ve learned to trust them. Yesterday they often failed. Placing them flat on the soil (usually safe) was enough to trigger random acts of slipping and sliding, or sometimes not. So, now on the way up, and faced with one of yesterday’s 80 centimetre skid-marks on a 40 degree slope and no clear way around the edges, I have some uncertainty about exactly where to put my foot.

    Still, in my case with hands poised in front ready to spread myself flat on the ground and slow the slide next time something slips out of place, we eventually get through the worst of it.

    There’s snow up here now, which must be from last night.

    Dates: 25th – 27th June, 2010
    Location: Ruahine Forest Park, Kawhatau Base Road-end.
    People: Amanda, Alistair, Richard and me.
    Huts visited: Crow Hut (1 night), McKinnon Hut (0 nights)
    Planned route: Up and around the Mokai Patea Ridge, down to Crow Hut for Saturday night. Then up and along the Hikurangi Range over Mangaweka, and out past Purity Hut.
    Actual route: Straight to Crow Hut for Saturday night, up along and down to McKinnon Hut, back to the Kawhatau River via the main track, then bashing up to a farm.
    [Photos]
    [map:https://93a12629bf06.ngrok-free.app/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/20100627-crow-hut-and-mckinnon-hut.gpx%5D

    This post is a trip report. You can find other trip reports about other places linked from the Trip Reports Page, or by browsing the Trip Reports Category.

    Yesterday was a short day. Camping at Kawhatau Base overnight, we’d hoped to get up over Mokai Patea — an alpine ridge which you know you’re on because it’s a kilometre wide (as Alistair put it) — drop down to Crow Hut and stay a night, then up to the tops and along the Hikurangi Range. Another trampey club group sharing our transport, with a shorter plan in mind (walking into McKinnon Hut and back), was set to drive the van further south later today to collect us. We abandoned our whole plan before it began, looking at the weather and everything. Just rain and rain and rain, not entirely claggy tops but enough to limit visibility to about 5o metres or so. We decided to ditch the idea of the Hikurangis, go straight to Crow Hut, and maybe get up early and around the Mokai Patea Range on the next day, ending up back where we began.
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  • Trip: Walls Whare to Totara Flats, and Cone Peak

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    Near Cone Peak.

    A few times now, I’ve wondered just how many degrees of separation there are between people who visit New Zealand’s back-country. Maybe a few people know nearly everyone, and the whole network is very closely connected. Maybe there are geographically localised networks.

    Dates: 12th – 13th June, 2010
    Location: Tararua Forest Park, Walls Whare Road-end.
    People: Steve, Megan B, Hans, Christine, Kevin and me.
    Huts visited: Totara Flats Hut (1 night)
    Planned route: Up past Cone Saddle, over Cone and down to Neill Forks for Saturday night. Then back up and around Totara Flats, back towards the road.
    Actual route: Straight to Totara Flats for Saturday night, up over Cone and back to start.
    [Photos]

    [Download GPX file] [View GPX on NZTopoMap]
    This post is a trip report. You can find other trip reports about other places linked from the Trip Reports Page, or by browsing the Trip Reports Category.

    We chased rainbows through the roads of the Wairarapa, and rain finally began to come down on us as we arrived in the parking area at the road-end of Walls Whare. There’s a nice camping area here, but it’d be somehow silly to use it this time given we were arriving at around 9.30am on a Saturday morning. Being a trip organised on behalf of our trampey club, our group consisted of Steve, myself, Megan, Hans, Christine and Kevin — a chap who mostly goes out with the Alpine Club whom Christine had managed to rope in on short notice. Apart from Christine, none of us had met Kevin before, but going tramping with people is a great way to meet people.

    Our intent was to get in to Neill Forks Hut for the evening, which I was looking forward to because I haven’t been there before. We shared our van with another trampey club group of people coordinated by Megan S, and their idea was just to walk to Totara Flats alongside the river, stay for the night and walk back. As we drove up a couple of TTC members were about to leave, taking a retired Search and Rescue dog for a walk in to Tutuwai and back to Cone. This was good weather for tramping, despite the rain setting in.
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