The Eyre Mountains

Text taken from the club newsletter.

THE EYRE MOUNTAINS

Going back is always curious by ILLONA KEENAN

The Eyre Mountains gave Megan Sety, Tony and I a taster in 2016 so the decision was made to go back in July 2017. The Eyres are big (over half the size of the Tararua Forest Park)—but are surrounded by mountains so they feel huge, and there is so much to explore. Winter tramping can always be a bit curious—what to take, what if it rains and snows. For this trip Tony checked out all the local web cams and we decided not to take any alpine gear as the snow level was pretty high—so our trip would be a tramp.

When we got down south (to go first to the NZ Mountain Film Festival in Wanaka) the snow level was a bit lower than expected—and the forecast was more on the way. That meant there was the possibility of snow shoeing. I was pretty keen on this—as I hate snow, which is something I am trying to conquer. Tony promised that snow shoeing was easy-peasy and awesome fun. Queenstown has its advantages, being able to hire anything for any adventure, so we were off to Small Planet to sort our snowshoes and pole hire. Then we drove into a snow storm to get to the road end—Mulholland Road and the Irthing Picnic area. We cleverly timed our departure to avoid the rain and wandered for a few hours to Mansion Hut. Which is a somewhat misnamed two-bunk bivvy with no loo. Megan and Ian kindly camped, and we had an ok fire that night—and the first of our dehy.

The next day was a sparkler and it was up to the ridge leading to Shepherd Saddle. Bless Megan and Ian taking pity on our six-day packs and leading the way up the hill and bashing through the scrub at the top. Our aim was to snow shoe along the ridge to the saddle and then down to Irthing Hut. The snow wasn’t too deep but after a wee while we put on our shoes regardless and started striding along. The thing I remember most is the sound of my steps. They were variable, depending on what you stood on. Snow—a soft crushing sound, hebe or dracophyllum—a scratchy sound, shingle and rocks—a thumping rumble. With a few ankle wobbles we made our way, but I reckon we only used them because we were paying for them. We didn’t make it to Irthing Hut, or even the saddle that night, so we camped in the snow on the ridge, with an awesome alpenglow sunset

(which is defined by Wikipedia as an optical phenomenon that appears as a horizontal reddish glow near the horizon opposite of the sun when the solar disk is just below the horizon—I even snuck my head out of the tent to see it!).

The next morning was cold and it was decided we wouldn’t get up until the sun was on the tent—which made for a rather late departure as the sunrise was at 8.30 am. Frozen boots were entertaining to put on and we left Megan and Ian to find their own way back to their car—we were heading onwards to Dog Box Biv. The snow was a bit better towards Shepherd Saddle so I was striding out on the snowshoes (with a wee fall too). The view further along the ridge from the saddle (at lunchtime) was curious—with a few rocky outcrops that didn’t look too appealing to the snow scared, so we opted for the route down to Shepherd Creek Hut. The snowshoes were worn but they weren’t required—looking back up the hill you couldn’t see any snow at all. It was a bit hard to go past the coal stash at Shepherd Creek Hut, so we stayed there for a warm night sleeping by the stove instead of going on.

The next morning was another blue-bird day, with a wander up the Eyre Creek valley— wondering why this lovely river was called a creek. We cracked through the ice of frozen puddles and did a bit of sun chasing for a food stop. We headed up Big Jungle Creek which wasn’t very junglely. At about 2 pm we needed to make the call of camping in the trees or heading further up the valley for a cold night in the snow. We dropped packs, had an explore of my first depression contour, caused by a couple of big landslides, and decided to camp in the trees. Time for a nana nap. Unfortunately the fire that evening was very lack-lustre. So after a fair amount of time flapping various things at it, we retired to the tent for an early start to the tarns in the upper basin in the morning.

Big Jungle Creek should have been named Big Scree Creek—the snow wasn’t deep enough for any snowshoeing. Careful foot placement was required to not come a cropper. Unfortunately one of Tony’s hired poles did come a cropper when he snapped it in half. We consulted the map 4 hours in, and unimpressed with our progress, we decided there was no need to look at the tarns after all and we went back to the camp.

The next morning was another beautiful day, and a trip to the historic Dog Box Biv—with graffiti by occupants from the 1930s—gave us an appreciation for those old musterers and their dogs. But I was quite glad we hadn’t stayed there. Down the valley breaking up more frozen puddles and then a sun drenched lunch outside Shepherd Creek Hut. We wandered to the edge of the conservation park to camp for the night (on a bit of a 4WD track that was no longer used). The fire we had here was epic—yep I stood a bit close and managed to burn my legs through my polypro. We had a longish walk out the next day and could see that the weather was changing. That night safely inside a hotel room in Mossburn we listened to the heavy rain on the roof.

The joys of holidays. It doesn’t really matter where you go—just as long as you are on holiday.