The forecast wasn’t great but our flights were booked. We were going.
Thursday
Flight to Blenheim, rental car to St Arnaud, water taxi to the end of the lake. A 7 hour walk in to Upper Travers hut. Twenty kilometres with 20kg packs, we got there in the dark and snow. Quite tired.
Friday
It snowed all day, making for a picture postcard scene, with snow falling and building up on the trees and railings. It would have been perfect viewed from the comfort of a warm lodge, but that hut is pretty big and the firewood was too damp to get a decent blaze going. However, hats off to us for buying some fire-starters at St Arnaud. Anyway a perfect day to lose myself in my Cormac McCarthy novel, set in the Texas desert. I was keeping one eye out for a dude with a captive bolt and an oxygen cylinder but we saw no-one else the whole trip, we had this winter wonderland to ourselves.
Saturday
The weather showed signs of clearing so we set out for Kehu Peak, to stretch our legs and get a feel for the conditions. It’s a good old climb straight out the back of the hut and stretch our legs we did. Knee high fresh snow and blundering over and around snow covered rocks and plants - I don’t care what they’re called I just want them to hold my weight. We made it up to the main basin but abandoned the peak when the wind came up. Back to the hut to dry out our gear.
Sunday
Up at 4:30 and out by 5:30 for Mt Travers via the East Face. Sadly the moonlight had gone but we navigated well up the snow field to find the left turn that took us up the snaking route below the bluffs. Our pace was steady until we roped up for the steeper sections. We couldn’t find any solid rock anchors and the snow was too shallow and soft for decent snow stakes. Our 1 pm turnaround time evaporated as we pushed on to the ridgeline, we couldn’t really go back down. We reached the ridge around 3:30, fortunately the day remained windless but we’d been in the shade for several hours and had got quite cold. A straight-forward approach remained up the ridge to the summit, but not today, time to head home before we lose light. We had a rough idea of the return route but made a wrong call that had us slog back up a ridgeline to a view of vertiginous descent. So, down again, then down and down to follow the creek back out to the track. Knee high fresh snow and blundering over and around snow covered rocks and plants - I don’t care what they’re called I just want them to not collapse. Follow the stream. Cross the stream. Bush bash when we hit the waterfall. Finally meet the bridge on the track back to the hut. Replace headlight battery. Now for the 3.5 km trek back to the hut. Arriving midnight, pretty wiped out but feeling like we’d made the most of the day.
Monday
Up at 7 and out the door by 8 after packing up and cleaning the hut. We’re on a tight schedule to meet the water taxi at 3 pm. Annoyingly my pack doesn’t seem any lighter. It’s downhill but I think yesterday’s exertions more than cancel that out. Tom has his hiking legs on and sets off ahead, we agree to meet at 1 pm. There’s only one track so there’s no worries. I continue until about ten past, accounting for his extra distance, but still no Tom. Well he’s probably boosted it to make sure he catches the water taxi. So I stop briefly then boost it too, gauging my progress by the 100m distance markers (thank you TA?). I got to the jetty at 10 to 3, pretty pleased to be there and finally catch Tom. Hang on a minute, he’s not there. How can that be - there’s only one track. Dread, panic and scrambling for the phone but there’s still no reception. The taxi arrived and we discussed scenarios, none really made any sense. If he’d come unstuck I would have found him, there were no forks to take, WTF? Fifteen minutes later Tom appeared, much to my relief. He had stopped at 1 pm but there were a couple of track diversions, we must have briefly been on alternative paths. This was his moment of dread and confusion wondering what had become of me, culminating in a kilometre back track to look for me until he found my boot prints.
All’s well that ends well, our rental car was waiting, unvandalized, and before long we were back in Blenheim airport for our flight home. A great long weekend!
