Return to the Matukituki......
On Jan 11th this year, I had a car packed, once again with climbing and mountaineering gear, and was headed off to Wanaka to meet Craig, and start our epic adventure! Both late, we pulled into the DoC office at the same time, so look at the weather, put in our intentions, and get excited! The weather was not very promising, but we were prepared for all conditions, and had a locator beacon, so we were all set. Except for a few last minute purchases, organising gear and ..... our last decent coffee for a week!
So by the time we reached Raspberry Flat car park it was about 13.30 pm, and we had 20KG packs and a long walk ahead! The first part of the walk is flat, and pretty, to Aspiring hut, and beyond down the valley to Shovel Flat. After a river crossing, its a tough 100m climb to French Ridge Hut. All well and good, but Craig was recovering from a nasty ankle injury and had not don any tramping for over a year....way to break him in gently Ange!
By 2100hrs, we arrived, gasping, out of the bush line and into the open. We only had another hour or so to the hut, but we were exhausted and darkness was falling, so we set up a wild camp near a tarn, and made dinner.
The next day was a well earned rest day. We had a leisurely morning in the sun, and then walked the remaining hour or so up to French Ridge hut, still climbing steeply. We got to the hut and Mark, the lovely volunteer warden, made us a pot of tea :-)
After lunch we practised rope work and crevasse rescue techniques on the rocks outside the hut, then we organised our gear. We planned to camp 2 nights on the Bonar Glacier, and attempt Mt Avalanche and Pope's Nose. However, on listening to the mountain forecast, the weather was supposed to turn on Saturday, the day we were coming down. We made a decision to still go, but to take enough supplies in case the weather came in early and we had to sit out a storm. We had an expected "out" day of Sunday, but our panic day (when people start to think we are in need of some help!) we had put as Tuesday, so we had some days to play with.
The next morning, at 06.30 am we set off up towards the Quarterdeck. We came out of the clouds, into beautiful weather. The quarterdeck was much more heavily crevassed than my last trip, and the top was a great big crevasse, with one remaining solid snow bridge across it. We got onto the Bonar Glacier in glorious sunshine. We found a flat spot on the glacier, poked around the check we were not on a precarious snow bridge, and set up our tent. We then set off towards Mt Avalanche. After plodding up steep snow, and negotiating a narrow path across a step slop with HUGE crevasses at the bottom, we reached the base of the rock. We moved together over loose rock, with some fairly good gear placements and made good time up Mt Avalanche. We didn't make it to the top as we made a decision to turn around in order to get off the glacier before the snow bridges became too soft and dangerous. We made it back to the tent by late afternoon, having had an awesome day!
We chilled out in the sun until it got cooler, had dinner, and settled in for our first night on the glacier. The first night taught me that sleeping on a $10 roll mat from the warehouse on snow is cold. And that my sleeping back did not have a -2 comfort rating (actually, its +2, I had obviously miss read it). And I was jealous of Craig's warm bag and thermarest!!!!
Next day, we got up early and walked across the Bonar towards Mt Aspiring, to attempt Pope's Nose. It was a long slog up snow, negotiating some awe-inspiring crevasses! We made it up to the base of the final climb, and a brilliant view! However the last part would elude us once more, there was a big schrund across the base, probably negotiable, but then a very steep section with poor protection. We probably could have soloed this but neither of us were that confident and a fall would have been unprotected and very bad! So we came away, happy, but slightly disappointed. It was an intense walk down, and there were some very delicate crossings of fairly exciting snow bridges over pretty scary holes in the ground!!!!
We plodded back towards our tent and had a great afternoon in the sun, a lovely dinner, and a well deserved rest.
Now in true Ange and Craig style we had a leisurely start to the next day, getting up at 7am. Our style is not "fast and light", not "true alpine". Its chilled out, messy and slightly disorganised. Its always fun, but sometimes not terribly professional. So as we walked towards the top of the quarterdeck in closing in weather, we kind of wished we had a wee bit more discipline and had got up at 0530am as planned. So we ended up on this snow slope, in bad weather and no visibility, surrounded by crevasses. The only sensible thing to do would be to re trace our steps and get back up to the safety of camp. We found our camp again and hour later, and put up our tent just in time. The rain, snow and 120kmph winds began, as did our 48hrs of "truth or dare" and the name game. Oh and eating nothing but bars, no hot food or drink and strict rationing. And did I mention being stung by whipped up snow and nearly being blown away whilst trying to pee? Sometimes I wish I was a man.......
We managed to make the next 48hrs really fun, did a lot of laughing, and a fair amount of sleeping. There was a brief weather window on the Monday night, but too late for us to go for it. We decided that the next day we would pack up at about the same time and have a shot. It was almost our panic day after all, we were fine, but would not have wanted people to come looking for us! So we packed up at 1400hrs the next day and headed to the top of the Quarterdeck. We spend an intense hour negotiating the worst bits (including knocking the last of the snow bridge at the top down....sorry! and me taking a slide - and remembering how to ice-axe arrest!!). It was intense! But we made it down in clearing weather, and got to the hut radio in time to let people know we were ok.
Boy did we have a good feed that night! 2 days of eating and drinking very little, we were glad to be able to use our gas and have a hot meal, hot drinks and as much food as we liked. We were walking out the next day so the more we could eat the better! We met some cool people at the hut that night and had an awesome time.
The next day we had a leisurely breakfast and set off down the valley. It was a long walk, and we broke the journey at Aspiring hut for an hour, w=it was pretty busy, and we were soaked through and hadn't had a shower for 7 days! lovely! We headed out and to Craig's friend's house where they had cooked us dinner :-) Then back to QT to Yan's house for some wine (we had missed his birthday due to getting stuck!) and spent the next few days recovering, mountain biking and kayaking! Back to work for the weekend, then a trip to the Catlins surfing..... All in all a fun packed and tiring few weeks!