Wellington Tramping and Mountaineering Club
Enjoying the great outdoors since 1947
“Arthur’s Pass. Arthur’s Pass. This is Goat Pass Hut, Goat Pass Hut” “Go ahead Goat Pass Hut” “Arthur’s Pass, we were wondering if we could get an up to date weather forecast for tomorrow?” (Sounding slightly irritated that anybody would be foolish enough to go into the outdoors based on yesterday’s forecast) “It’s much the … Read more
It had been a while since I’d headed into the hills, and my feet were getting restless. The Tauherenikau Valley is the primary reason that I’d joined WTMC after unintentionally spending two nights in the open, without a fly or sleeping bag, in horrendous conditions (including snow), several years earlier. It was time to face … Read more
The Coast Road heading south from Wainuiomata provides a picture of New Zealand ruralness so idyllic, it feels a bit like you’ve driven onto a huge scenic calendar. The road winds through a landscape of ideally green paddocks, wooden water troughs and tumbledown sheds. Cabbage trees appear with regular randomness, as if part of a … Read more
The forecast was for heavy rain and strong cold southerly winds but we decided to go anyway. After all we would be in the bush most of the way and so out of the worst of the weather, and the stretch in the open would be short enough. And we both needed a day out … Read more
Having a spare weekend in mid-February, I decided to sign up for a club trip. There were two trips going from the Kaitoke road end, meaning a Saturday morning start (yay!). The Medium trip appeared to involve a long slog along the Marchant Ridge, which I’ve never done, having been deterred by its reputation. The … Read more
We left Syme Hut at 10.30am and stepped straight into a howling gale and horizontal hail. Visibility suddenly vanished and we were forced to quickly don sunglasses to avoid squinting into a near white-out. I looked back at the hut into the teeth of the storm and was rewarded with a painful pelting of hail, … Read more
The book “Day Walks of Greater Wellington” warns “be prepared for stunning views, this is an astounding viewpoint”. It is fair to say that the less prepared, the better … due to cloud we saw little more than each other, the dirt track and roadside vegetation. However, on the bright side if we had been … Read more
I remembered vividly the sleepless nights I had in Plateau hut at the base of Mt Cook last year, also in November, the wind was shaking the hut so violently the first thing I did next morning was to climb underneath the hut to make sure the cables holding the hut were still in place, … Read more
Flying into Christchurch late Friday we had two days and a dodgy weather forecast to get ourselves over Ball Pass. Three of the group had gone ahead early, which left six of us arriving on the 8:15 pm flight to grab the two remaining cars and drive to Mt Cook. The weather on the way … Read more
We started out on Labour weekend with a basic plan of staying a couple of nights around Studholme Saddle Hut, and possibly heading further up the main Kaweka Range during that time. Things didn’t work out that way. For the first time in a long time, at least as far as I can remember, we … Read more