Rangiwahia Tops; Triangle & Irongate

Date: 13-15 July, 2012

Punters: Bernie, Brendan, Craig, Debbie, Jamie, Paul (L) and Sarah from the Wellington Tramping & Mountaineering Club.

 

On Friday night we surprised a full hut after tramping up to the elevation of 1300m.asl to Rangiwahia Hut under torchlight. Most of our group stayed on the floor, but I was not one to let a few clumps of snow sighted under torchlight discourage me and chose to stay outside under the veranda on the east deck. After all, I do not go outdoors to stay on a stuffy hut. Ironically, I spent the rest of the weekend hearing the tales of woe of how cold the rest of the party was - inside the hut!

 

 

Snowy Ridgeline

Saturday morning began with a climb up into the snow line proper. It began with mostly good travel with a few instances of stepping through the firm crust and post-holing into between knee deep and waist deep below. This was related to the snow covering the tussock shrubs. On the descent toward Triangle I found myself falling through the snow almost every other step. My knees took a hammering and with supporting cast members, Paul and Brendan we were leaving a trail of blood to mark the Ruahine Tramper massacre every time we post-holed through the snow.

 

On some firmer snow, Sarah let out a not quite so death curdling  scream as she went for a skate down the slope. I drifted off the back of the group as I continued to post-hole through the snow, in one case having to fetch my boot which didn't come out with my leg. My knees were pretty smashed up by the time we reached Triangle Hut where we had lunch.

Descending down to Triangle

Triangle Hut

The section down the river after lunch was absolutely my favourite section of the trip. It seemed surprisingly warm given it was the middle of winter. Possibly this was due to running water being warmer than the frozen stuff we had spent the morning amongst. When we got to the track that left the river with a near vertical scramble before descending rapidly to the river. I was promptly overruled when I suggested it was a flood track and the river was not in flood. (Post trip I have been advised that is both possible and impossible to follow the river in this section. I may return to explore this for myself)

 

 

 

We had a large serving of pasta with tomato base for dinner. Having the fire on on the evening I found the hut too hot but the veranda was small and covered in firewood so I stayed inside on this occasion. Perhaps just as well given the heavy rain that fell in the middle of the night.

 

Irongate Hut

 

The route out on Sunday was less interesting. It was more or less, a flood track up the side of the river that went up, across and down as each slip along the river was crossed. We stopped for lunch at Heritage Lodge, which was welcome as a shower passed over. It was great that it only rained while we were indoors. On returning home the news was full of flooding woes that thankfully did not beset on ourselves.

 

I think this route would be more suited to a summer trip and it may or may not be possible to follow the river from Triangle to the Irongates, near the road end. This may take some exploring and some possible pack floats... Most trips seem to have this thing about following tracks these days, but I continue to consider them optional :>.