The hard way to Waiopehu Hut

It promised to be a wonderful weekend in the sunny tararuas. And for once they were actually meant to be sunny! We set off Saturday after a week of rain from the railway station. On the way up I noticed the higher than usual flow in the rivers when we crossed the bridges… it occurred … Read more

E/M/F Trip to Atiwhakatu and Jumbo

One of the easy aspects of this E/M tramp was the Friday evening to sort out your stuff and fill your pack, although a little voice in the back of my head kept telling me we had to get up reasonable early on Saturday. Indeed the alarm went off shortly after 6AM, allowing us to … Read more

Mt Rolleston – Arthurs Pass

Accompanied by a light westerly and drizzle we pulled our packs out of the car, switched on our head torches and headed up the Coral track. This could be a short, steep, sticky night time jaunt to the bush line and back if the wind doesn’t abate we joked, philosophical about our chances. Unlike previous … Read more

Mt Tapuae-o-Uenuku – Inland Kaikouras

The journey to Mt. Tappy is one of the highlights of the WTMC winter schedule and this year was no exception. The trip got off to a poor start from a punctuality viewpoint as we arrived into Picton 90 mins late at half past midnight. The ferry staff put on free fish n chips to … Read more

Heritage to Tunupo

Around the 3rd to 5th of September Bernie, Richard, Mike and I had plans to do some exploring around the southern Ruahines. We bailed out a day early with too much snow for the gear we’d brought, not to mention an extended mountain forecast of 120km/h galeforce nor-westerlies in exposed mountain areas on Sunday. Okay, … Read more

Mt Cupola

I looked at the weather forecast on the Monday and it looked alright. Rain on the Friday and Sunday and clear on the Saturday, the climbing day By Tuesday the forecast had gone rotten, two fronts passing through one hitting on our Saturday. I sorted out a good book and made sure we had some … Read more

Tutuwai Hut via Mount Reeves

Tuesday evening before the tramp. I was supposed to be leading a Medium trip to Kime on the coming weekend but unfortunately one signed up. Thankfully, Paul Jefferies was leading an overnight tramp to Tutuwai and as there was space I decided to join Paul’s trip. Friday 17.00. At this point on a weekend tramp … Read more

Family trip to Matiu Somes Island

Having lived outside New Zealand for a while, I can say that weather forecasting is quite a bit more hit and miss here than, say, Australia or Europe. Something to do with being a small island in a large ocean, I’ll bet. But when the Metservice decided to add a 10 day forecast to their … Read more

Alpine Refresher

This year we decided to schedule an alpine refresher weekend ahead of the snow courses, the idea being that instructors would get in some practice before the courses started. However, with Snowcraft cancelled due to a lack of numbers, the weekend evolved into an opportunity for people who had previously done an AIC or Snowcraft … Read more

Soup on the Rocks

After what seemed to be weeks and weeks of rain this Saturday morning the sun was out again. A good start for the easy ‘novelty’ walk to the Rimutaka Forest Park organised by Steve. (Originally, the ‘novelty’ part was to be hot lasagne; later changed for soup.) We met part of our group at platform … Read more