Mt Mulick

Text taken from the club newsletter.

Mt Mulick by SHARRON CAME

Time to retreat to Jordon Saddle. We pull our ice axes out thinking the snow will be icy but we are able to affect a rapid, easy descent on medium firm snow. In no time we are wading through patches of accumulated snow at the top of Jordan Stream looking for the best descent route which turns out to be the stream itself. The top half of the stream is a bit gorge-like so we get lots of boulder climbing and stream wading practice. Funny sand terraces collapse around us if you so much as glance their way. Everywhere snowflakes waltz and swoon as the sun struggles valiantly to pierce the clouds without success. Lower down the snow is replaced by a rather Photos: DAVID JEWELL

Friday night sees us downing cups of tea and birthday cake at Ant’s place in Christchurch. Maps are spread across the table. DJ and I dither about sorting, packing and repacking. Weather forecasts are studied for the twentieth time. Ant calmly taps away on his lap top conjuring up Plan B.

At dawn on Saturday we drive along the deserted road through the snowy mountain lands to the Bealey Spur road end. Already Arthur’s Pass Village is gift- wrapped in a veneer of thin, grey cloud creeping over the divide like fast growing ivy. Still clear and sunny in the east though.

Day packs on we trot past the cute cribs to the Bealey Spur track which leads to the hut of the same name. The terrain is easy going through bush and tussock tops interspersed with delightful tarns. This walk is popular with Canterbury school parties and I can see why. The hut is at nearly 1,000 m altitude and the walk to it affords great panoramas of snow coated tops as well as a clear view down the Waimakariri River valley. Apart from a couple of admittedly very noisy Canadian ducks we have the place to ourselves.

From the hut we continue above the bush line through soft snow following Hut Spur all the way around to Jordon Saddle on the Black Range. If we had a better weather forecast it would have been fun to traverse the entire range but that adventure will have to wait for another day. As it was his birthday we graciously let Ant do lots of step plugging. The views were inspiring, the snow stayed firm enough for us to make good progress and the weather held although the burnt toast colour of the billowing clouds suggested a change was imminent. The odd bit of scrambling kept us on our toes literally.

About half an hour before our high point and due to an oversight on my part I’m in front. Suddenly visibility shrinks to about a metre and loads of little white snowflakes trickle earthwards surfing the gusty southerly that has arrived from nowhere. Good excuse to surrender the lead I decide as Ant pushes on to our high point. We christen this bump Mt Mulick in honour of the birthday boy. Photos record our ascent for prosperity as snow swirls around us and the wind flares and bites.

more prosaic drizzle.

Eventually as the afternoon draws to a close we pass Little Jordon Stream and the valley opens out giving us views of the Waimakariri in the distance. Another couple of hours and we’re back at the main road from whence it’s a short amble back to the car.

The Bealey Spur – Jordon Saddle – Jordon Stream loop is a great day walk. For us it represented a short, intense exploration of a part of Arthur’s Pass we’d not been to, and we returned to Christchurch for another round of birthday cake satisfied we’d fed our climbing addiction and maximised our louver sized weather window. Ant Mulick, David Jewell and Sharron Came. ALP1 F—Arthurs Pass NP.