Windy Tops

Tag: navigation

  • 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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  • GPSs, Compasses and Navigation

    Back in July, I wrote something about reports of a quick and painless helicopter rescue of a couple of people who’d become lost on Quoin Ridge, and especially how it was reported that they were in trouble due to a failure of their GPS. The point I was really trying to make was that the way it was reported, through propagation of a couple of simplified press releases that stated limited facts without analysis, implicitly validated reliance on a GPS as an acceptable way of avoiding getting lost, not to mention a cellphone as a rescue alert device, even though neither of these things is great to rely on. (I have no idea whether the reports accurately reflect what actually happened.)

    Reading about the incident, probably because of how it was reported, had me thinking more about why I don’t really trust GPSs in the outdoors. Actually, it’s not so much that I don’t trust a GPS as that I don’t think they naturally encourage a really good navigation sense as well as a map and compass can.

    I bought a GPS about a year ago, primarily for keeping track of where I’ve been. I usually just leave it switched on in the top of my pack, and it works very well. At the time, I expressed some concern that I might be less motivated to practice navigation skills. And yeah, I’ve used the GPS from time to time to get positions, but a year later I feel better about it, I think because I know I’ve also been improving my general navigation skills at the same time. It’s augmenting what I was already doing but not replacing it, and I’ve never felt as if I’m relying on a GPS and that I’ll be trapped or in deep trouble if it suddenly switched off.
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  • Trip: Arete Forks via Cow Saddle and Waingawa

    Last weekend we ventured out to reach Arete Forks, which lies near the upper reaches of the Waingawa River in the Tararua Range. Rather than take the most direct route, a fairly boring sidling track, the four of us intended to climb up over Waingawa Peak from Cow Saddle, before dropping into Arete Forks Hut on the far side.

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    Megan S following the south-west spur off Waingawa (1423).
    Pinnacle Spur and Tarn Ridge in the background.

    Dates: 24th – 26th September, 2010
    Location: Tararua Forest Park, Kiriwhakapapa Road End.
    People: Amanda, Megan S, Megan B and me.
    Huts visited: Blue Range Hut (1 night), Arete Forks Hut (1 night), Cow Creek Hut (0 nights).
    Route: Up to Blue Range Hut from Kiriwhakapapa on Friday night, then down the track and veer onto an old track to Cow Saddle. Up to spot-height 1360 via the track onto Cattle Ridge, then a few hundred metres past Waingawa (1423) and down an overgrown spur direct to Arete Forks Hut for Saturday night. Out via the horrid sidling track (with the river being too high) to Cow Creek Hut, and back to the Kiriwhakapapa Road End.
    [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.

    Coming after an unusual week of strong, persistent nor-westerly wind, things didn’t exactly let up, and we were concerned that the continuing conditions might prevent us from getting onto the tops. Having been dropped at the Kiriwhakapapa road end at 8.30pm, we took a little under 2 hours to climb up to Blue Range Hut, our passage being accompanied at the higher elevations by a roaring jet-plane kind of wind. For me personally this is the third time I’ve climbed to Blue Range Hut in the dark, and I was a little surprised when the surroundings appeared unfamiliar for what I’d been expecting. All that had happened was that we’d walked straight past the turn-off sign without noticing, and at that time I’d not been expecting to see the comparably open section of track with violently waving head-high trees.
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  • Media Impressions of a Tararua Rescue

    Sunday (a week ago, 11th July) saw what was probably a routine rescue mission in the southern Tararuas. A man (31) and a woman (27) from Wellington were somewhere in the vicinity of Alpha Hut and unexpectedly walking through deep snow. The Sun began to set, and their GPS batteries died. It seems they were lucky to be in a place where their phone worked, because they texted their last known position to friends to say they were scared for their safety, and were heading for Alpha Hut. The weather was very clear and calm, not expected to deteriorate any time soon. A helicopter crew spotted their torch light at about 6.30pm on Sunday night, using night vision goggles, and collected them.

    In some ways this rescue wasn’t very interesting. It barely made the news at all. It was reported very briefly in the DomPost, not even giving an approximate location, but reporting the GPS failure. A press release from the Life Flight Trust (duplicated here) adds a few more details, but wasn’t picked up and analysed by any popular media outlets that I can find. Also being a press release from the helicopter operator, its main focus is that they rescued people with their helicopter rather than explaining why those people needed rescuing.
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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: Blue Range Nav to Mid King Biv

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    The hut book at Mid King Biv.

    Things began with an idea of a weekend expedition over the Tararua tops to Tarn Ridge Hut. Somehow, even with the weather cooperating for such an idea, things didn’t quite work out that way. It was the opposite, and we spent the majority of our time navigating off-track below the bush line.

    Dates: 7th – 9th May, 2010
    Location: Tararua Forest Park, Kiriwhakapapa Road-end.
    People: Illona, Richard and me.
    Huts visited: Blue Range Hut (1 night), Mitre Flats Hut (0 nights), Mid King Biv (1 night)
    Planned route: Up to Blue Range Hut for Friday night, over to Cow Creek, navigate up to Table Ridge, along around Mitre and Girdlestone, and to Tarn Ridge Hut for Saturday night. Down over Mitre, then up Donald Spur and past Blue Range Hut back down to the road.
    Actual route: Up to Blue Range Hut for Friday night, over Te Mara and down Donald Spur to Mitre Flats, then up to Mid King Biv for Saturday night. Back to Mitre Flats, up onto Blue Range near Stoney Creek, along to Bruce Hill and down a spur to the south-east to the old bush tram track that leads back to the road.
    [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.

    Originally there were going to be four of us, but Paul unfortunately had to drop out with a foot problem, which left Richard, Illona and Myself. We stopped for a Friday night dinner at Carterton, which has a fabulous kebab shop, then continued to the Kiriwhakapapa road-end. Along the way we discussed the original plan, which would have been to walk from Kiriwhakapapa to Cow Creek, up to Table Ridge, along to Girdlestone, and then on to Tarn Ridge Hut… then come down over Mitre and up Donald Spur (a more direct way back to Blue Range Hut) on Sunday. The more we thought about it, the more that this idea seemed to be skimming the edges of available daylight at this time of year. Consequently, we thought we might try doing it in reverse instead, which would make Saturday the longer day.
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  • Topo50 map boundaries and Wellington

    This post is my attempt to make sense of where the significant boundaries lie in the replacement 1:50000 Topo50 map series pushed out by Land Information New Zealand last September to replace the old 260 series. I can’t guarantee how much if it will be useful, but as always comments, feedback and experienced elaboration are welcome.

    A couple of weeks ago, I took part in a bulk order of the new Topo50 maps, which replace the old 260 series that’s been in publication for several decades until now. I’m now the owner of 18 Topo50 maps to get me started, having picked up most of them for $3.50 each, around half the usual retail price. You can get this price (which includes GST but not postage) if you have a bulk order or 20 or more maps direct from LINZ, which makes it useful for clubs or groups of friends who know in advance what they want. I wrote about these maps last year, including more detail about why it’s actually happening and what the main changes are. The new maps have a couple of obvious differences:
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  • Trip: Walking the Mokihinui River, Southern Branch

    The Mokihinui River, near the south-west side of Kahurangi National Park, has a large catchment. Our new years’ walk along the river was inspired by recent plans of Meridian Energy to build an 85 metre dam, which would flood the river with an artificial 14 kilometre lake for the purposes of electricity export from the region. This would be at the expense of a unique landscape that can only be formed by a wild river, and of the flora and fauna that inhabits the region. A recent unofficial statement suggested that the current government is unlikely to allow this to occur, although Energy Minister Gerry Brownlee has since complained that his comment was taken out of context and he’s not interfering. The official commission doesn’t expect to reach a decision until February 2010, and nothing’s certain in the current climate. This is why we wanted to go out and see the Mokihinui River, because its future seems quite uncertain.
    [Update 7th April 2010: The dam has been given approval, pending a likely appeal.] [Update 22nd May 2012: Meridian has now withdrawn its project from the Environment Court and will not proceed.]

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    Sue crosses one of
    many side creeks.

    Dates: 31st December, 2009 – 5th January 2010 (one day late)
    Location: Mokihinui River, Mokihinui Forks Ecological Area and Lyell Range-Radiant Range Conservation Area (south-east of Kahurangi National Park).
    People: Steve, Allen, Sue, Dmitry, Mark, Robert and me.
    Huts visited: Mokihinui Forks Hut (0 nights).
    Route: Start at Lyell, walk up the gold mining route to the head of the south branch of the Mokihinui River, follow the river to Mohihinui Forks Hut, then out along the route on the river’s true left to Seddonville.
    [Photos]
    [map:https://93a12629bf06.ngrok-free.app/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/20100105-mokihinui-south-branch.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.

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  • Te Araroa to avoid Oriwa Ridge in the Tararuas

    New Zealand’s Department of Conservation has decided not to establish a track along Oriwa Ridge in the Tararuas as part of Te Araroa — The Long Pathway. Instead, DOC is recommending that Te Araroa go via the exposed tops in the Tararuas, via places like Te Matawai, Dracophyllum, Nichols.

    The full published results are available on DOC’s website.

    The original proposal of the Te Araroa Trust was to go more or less via this route, but the Trust put together the alternative proposal to build a track along Oriwa Ridge, below the bush-line, after the DOC Wellington Hawkes Bay conservancy expressed concern that the earlier route could be too dangerous for the often less experienced trampers that Te Araroa might be expected to attract. This has been brewing for about a year now, and has unveiled much controversy over balancing the seclusion of dedicated wilderness areas and the promotion of recreation, and all that.

    Having gone through the submission process with 218 submissions, DOC has decided that its initial concerns are no longer relevant. It’s decided that for various reasons Oriwa Ridge probably isn’t that much safer anyway, that the reasons against the Oriwa Ridge proposal out-weigh the reasons in favour, and ultimately that there will be no track built through Oriwa Ridge. Reasoning that the Te Araroa Trust has since included rugged exposed alpine routes in other regions of the track, DOC has now also come out in favour of the original Te Araroa proposal that it initially had concerns about, to follow the existing and more exposed route through the Tararuas at higher altitude. As long as everyone who walks this section of the Te Araroa Trail takes standard precautions (ie. doesn’t take undue risks), this should be a win for everyone.

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  • Trip: Ruamahanga, Blue Range, Te Mara and Kiriwhakapapa

    Last weekend we had a nice navigation trip in the Tararuas, along part of Blue Range, organised by Marie and Alistair. It was largely a navigation trip, and was well worthwhile despite persistent rain. Apart from an overnight stop at Blue Range Hut (or camping outside), we managed to spend nearly the entire weekend off-track.

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    Alistair and Patricia navigating
    down Te Mara.

    Dates: 11th – 13th September, 2009
    Location: Tararua Forest Park, Ruamahanga and Kiriwhakapapa road-ends.
    People: Marie, Alistair, Patrisha, Richard, Tim and me.
    Huts visited: Blue Range Hut (1 night).
    Route: From Ruamahanga Road End up a south-east spur to Blue Range, heading south-west along the ridge to Blue Range Hut for Saturday night. Then up to Te Mara, and down to the South East. Out at Kiriwhakapapa.
    [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 spent Friday night in Kiriwhakapapa Shelter, sharing it with another club group, even though we weren’t intending to start from there. It’s not quite as exposed as the Ruamahanga road-end further north, though. The rain was coming down persistently by the time we drove up, and one way or another anyone on the edges migrated further inwards overnight. Eventually the bellbirds began to wake, and some kind of bird that I couldn’t identify began making a lot of noise as it started fluttering around with its nest in the ceiling.
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