Three Passes

Nicole Miller article - start of the track
The closer it gets to a long weekend the more often the weather forecast pages are up on my Internet browsers. No different for this years Easter weekend. The weather patterns coming up over the West Coast of the South Island and over Arthur’s Pass were changing every time new data was uploaded, but had one thing in common – red colours and severe weather warnings. Nevertheless two parties were set up to walk over the three passes starting from both ends with a car swap.

Nicole Miller article - on Brownings PassMike, Sharron, Ant and I were heading towards the West Coast to walk up the Styx River and around a couple of big slips towards Grassy Flat Hut. After a lunch break and perfectly timed regulation breaks we made use of the weather and went over the Styx Pass and up the Arahura Valley to Harman Hut. Shortly after we arrived rain settled in and the next morning we decided to have a well earned rest day. We had to bear the hard consequences of a hut day including hut philosophy, lots of sleep, a lot of chocolate Easter eggs and planning the next day.

Rain was supposed to settle and with an early start we decided to head off towards Browning Pass. Rain eased after a couple of hours and after a steep decent towards the Clough Memorial and some bush bashing we had lunch at Park Morpeth Hut. Heading up the Cronin Stream we made our way along the river bed towards the Cronin Glacier with a final steep ascent towards Whitehorn pass. The ice field on the other side was washed out with large bridges over the stream, so we had to traverse along steep gravel slopes and finally climb on the icefield further down the valley. By the time we reached Harman Pass it was still too windy to set up a campsite so we tried to descend the Taipo river gorge as far as possible before daylight finished. The Clough cable way was a welcome alternative to cross the White River at night and with a couple of breaks and two people at the wheels we managed to get everybody on the other side. Some boulder hopping later and after climbing over more slips we arrived at Carrington Hut after a long day.

The walk out the Waimakariri River was straight forward and the thought of having a beer in the pub at the road end got more and more appealing towards the end of the tramp…

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