"Cold, Wet, Miserable..."

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"Cold, Wet, Miserable.... II Harry Smith "Luxury! When Iwere a lad we 'ad it tough!". - Monty Python. Preparing for the Ten Hour Gorge Harry Smith itting around the campfire at the end of a hard day's when the rain finally stopped and the river dropped tramping the talk often turns to past trips into the enough to make movement possible, they had had hills. Inevitably, tales of one's most miserable trips enough. They packed up their sodden tents, turned come to the fore, retold with relish and perverse plea- round, headed back down the gorge, called up a jet-boat sure. Exaggerations are the order of the day. "Cold, wet, on their mountain radio, and got the hell out of there. miserable" becomes a standard phrase. So I thought I would recall a few of my most memorable miserable We headed out down the gorge at the end of a Christmoments on trips over the years. mas trip many years ago. Within 5 minutes I had fallen off an underwater ledge was edging my way along and One of the most grovelly trips I have done is down Ten disappeared into the river up to my armpits, though for- Hour Gorge. This is where the Arawhata River basically tunately this was a backwater, not out in the main curfalls out of the mountains. Only two miles long as the rent. From there on it was a matter of scrambling crow flies, the gorge, as the name suggests, takes a full around, over, between, and sometimes under the masday to traverse under normal circumstances and all sive boulders. Fortunately we were going downwards: the furies of hell are concentrated into those two miles. there were places where we could jump down off boul- The gorge is littered with huge boulders the size of buses ders which I don't think we would ever have been able and houses. The river churns past, threatening instant to get back In one place I remember having to take death to anyone rash enough to venture into it. The steep our packs to them a small hole under oAt push through banks are covered with thick scrub, nettle, and bush a huge pile of boulders, squeezing through after them, lawyer. then clambering down a steep drop on the far side. Where we couldn't make progress among the boulders Iknow of one party that set off up Ten Hour Gorge at the at the river-side we took to the scrub on the banks. start of a ten-day Christmas trip. They spent the first day battling upwards in the pouring rain, getting only as far We arrived at Halfway Creek in only two or three hours as Halfway Creek, one of the few places in the gorge a good time we thought, but as it turned out, the where it is possible to camp. There they camped while hardest part of the gorge was yet to come. There folthe river surged past, a few metres away. After at few days lowed several more hours of hard going, scrambling Tramping and Mountaineering 1997 among the giant boulders or scrub-bashing up on the squelching through the ooze, twisting and turning along banks. By the time we were nearing the bottom of the the watery channels. It was with immense relief that we gorge - was swearing out loud at this poxy hell-hole in eventually reached the gravel banks of the river where the worst language know. - and my command of good we could make camp. old-fashioned Anglo-Saxon vernacular, I am ashamed to admit, is pretty good. But perhaps the worst thing about Ten Hour Gorge was Sometimes sitting out a long period of bad weather can the sting in the tail, carefully constructed to raise our seem as bad as being caught out in it. One such occaspirits and then dash them again. After several hours of sion was in the Beans Burn rock bivvy. The Beans Burn tough going we suddenly emerged on a boulder beach bivvyis a large pile of giant boulders in the head of the around the outer curve of an S-shaped bend. From the Beans Burn Valley, a tributary of the Dart River and one twists and turns on the map, we knew that we were of the major access routes into the Olivines. Inside the nearly at the bottom of the gorge. For a hundred yards rock pile is a maze of caverns and crannies. On the or SO the going was easy, we could boulder-hop along northern size are two good bivy areas, an upper one, on small boulders. Great, I told myself, it's easing up, light and airy but open to the weather, and a lower one, we're getting out. We rounded the second part of the S- flat and sheltered, but rather small and pitch dark. We bend and there, clearly visible, seemingly almost within arrived there one year at the start of a Christmas trip and arms reach, were the river flats at the bottom of the set up residence in the upper bivvy. gorge, only a few hundred metres away. breathed a sigh of relief. We were almost out of this nightmare. Another Next morning the weather had set in. Wind howled five or ten minutes at most, I told myself. down the valley. Rain poured out of the heavens. We abandoned our planned crossing of Fohn Saddle that day. Well, those last few hundred metres must have taken us at least another hour of hard going, another hour ofcon- In the upper cave we were soon getting soaked by sheets tinuous clambering over huge boulders in the tangled of rain being blown in by the wind. We found a large bush, clambering over matted nets of tree roots sus- sheet of polythene and tried to rig it up in the entrance pended several feet off the ground, where you would way but the gales were too strong and whipped it down. regularly break through and fall up to your waist in the Eventually we gave up and retreated to the lower cave. empty spaces underneath. When we finally did arrive on Here we sat in the pitch darkness for the next two or the grassy flats, threw my pack to the ground, sat down, three days, not moving doing nothing. Another party and muttered "paradise". who had been bivvying under an overhang around the back of the rock pile had got flooded out by a rising stream; they came and took over our old spot in the upper cave. A number of other parties were ensconced Of all the poxy hell-holes have ended up in, one of the in still further nooks and crannies in the rock pile, and poxiest would have to be the Diorite swamp. This is a at one time we heard the melancholy tones of a mouthhuge area of swamp in the floor of the Pyke Valley organ come drifting to us mournfully through the air around the mouth of the Diorite River, a hanging valley from the far inner reaches of the rock pile. which drains westward out of the Olivines. We had camped on Forgotten River flats, waiting for high winds to abate SO that a helicopter could get in with our Another memorable campsite was one we had on a food-drop. Eventually we gave up, abandoned the rest Christmas trip to the Garden of Eden, a trip which had of our planned trip onto the Olivine Ice Plateau, and far more than its fair share of bad weather. (Struan was decided to bail out over Four Brothers Pass and down the of course on this trip.) We had camped on a broad, rocky Diorite into the Pyke River, and thence out to the shelf, just off the ice on the true left of the Lambert Gla- Hollyford roadend where we would be able to buy sup- cier, above the ice-fall. Our campsite was on patches of plies at Gunn's Camp. smooth, flat gravel in a rocky hollow an ideal campsite, or SO it seemed. Ifwe had had our wits about us we Dropping down out of the Diorite was a nightmare in it- would have rejected that campsite immediately. self: the whole way, we seemed to be clambering above ground level on a network of elevated tree roots, which From our campsite we did a day trip up the Lambert you would continuously break through. Finally we ar- Glacier, over Satan Saddle, down the Garden of Allah, rived at the floor of the Pyke Valley. At last! We were and up through Adams Col and onto the Garden ofl Eden. down out of this vertical nightmare. I had visions of We stood there for a grand total of about five minutes emerging onto a flat, lazy river, sunny vistas, nice grassy and saw nothing through the clag before retreating in the river flats, sandy beaches. Unfortunately, it was not to face of a gathering storm. Arriving back at camp, we nobe. The river itselfwas a mile away, across the other side ticed a small puddle had formed down thet far end of our of this massive, flat-floored valley. Instead, what we now rock hollow, but thought nothing of it. That evening we faced was this mile-wide swamp. We set off to cross this, were lying in our pits, listening to the rain thundering wading waist deep through the evil black water, feet down on the nylon above us, glad to be inside the tent Tramping and Mountaineering 1997 petual wind and mud and rain. This is no doubt becausel I try and avoid the place like the plague. The only time I tend to go anywhere near the Tararuas these days is if we are in the middle of a drought, it hasn't rained for weeks, there isn't a cloud in the sky, and there is an anti-cyclone the size of a continent extending far out over the Tasman Sea. It also helps if Struan is overseas. Even then I will usually wait until the last minute on Friday afternoon to check the most up-todate weather forecast before taking the plunge andj joining the trip. Ido, however, remember one particular trip to the Tararuas that definitely makes the grade. Campsite off the Lambert Glacier Harry Smith It was a mid-winter Jumbo-- Holdsworth I did many years ago with John Booth. Normally this out of the elements, when we began to notice a slight would be an easy trip, but not on this occasion. We sponginess about the end wall of our tent. Poking our walked in to Atiwhakatu Hut by torchlight on Friday heads out the doorway, we found to our dismay that our night. Next morning we did the grunt up to Jumbo, small, innocent puddle was now a rapidly expanding lake where the snow was thick and deep upon the ground. lapping at the walls of our tent. The nice flat gravel on Continuing on up past the hut we found ourselves walwhich we had camped was nice and flat because it was lowing upwards through deep, soft snow hard, exin fact the bed of a periodic pool. Looking across wes saw hausting work. Then emerging on the upper, rocky ridge that Eric and Grant's tent was now perched on an island of Jumbo the conditions became treacherous, icy, and of gravel, entirely surrounded by water. Above us a slight wel hadi to stop and put on crampons. From Jumbo southindentation in the previously dry, innocent cliffs was now wards along the range conditions initially weren't too a raging torrent, funnelling water directly towards us. bad, but the weather gods quickly rectified that. By the time we were doing thet final climb up towards Mt. Hold- We crawled out of the comfort of our tent, threw parkas sworth we were in the midst of a full-scale blizzard (or over our shoulders like capes, grabbed ouri ice axes, and at least sO I remember it, but these stories do have a set to work to try and save the situation. Fortunately habit of becoming more and more desperate with each there seemed to be a natural outlet channel through the retelling over the years!). The only way you could make bedrock. This had become blocked with rubble, so we any forward progress was to plunge youri ice axe into the cleared a drainage channel. We scraped gravel out of the ground and hang on for dear life to prevent yourself ditch and levered large bounders out of the way. Geoff being blown off the ridge-top; then every few minutes and Julia, safely camped on higher ground, laughed at us the wind would ease enough for you to blunder onwards unmercifully from the doorway of their tent. It was a for another few metres before plunging your ice axe back frantic race between us and the rising water, but after a into the ground and hanging on desperately once more. period of hard work we: seemed to have opened a drain- At one point I remember feeling so miserable I could age channel large enough to allow the water to drain out quite happily have sat down in the snow and stayed there of the pool as fast as it was flowing in. The slow creep forever if John hadn't urged me on. towards our tent came to an end, and we could return to the warmth of our pits once more. Finally we made it to the trig on the top of Holdsworth and turned towards Powell Hut. Thel light was fading and Naturally this body of water which almost engulfed us navigation was becoming difficult. I distinctly remember was christened Lake Struan. the curious sensation of stumbling movement and slurred speech - sure signs of the onset ofl hypothermia, although wasn't in a fit state to recognise them as such at the time. Finally we spotted the dim lights of Powell You would expect the Tararuas to feature high in any Hut through the darkness in the distance and staggered collection of "most miserable trip" stories, given just into safety. 1 think the trip across the tops from hut to hut what a miserable, poxy, nasty, scungey, grovelly hell-hole must have taken us a good eight hours that day. they really are (what? me biased?) but in fact have very few suitable stories from those particular ranges of per- Tramping and Mountaineering 1997

My most grovelly trip in recent years would have to be the "horsespotting" trip I did with Allen and Sue Higgins into the Kaimanawas towards the end of 1996, in the wake of the controversy over the fate of the wild horses there. The first day was actually pretty good we went in along the southern access route from the Desert Road in pleasant, sunny conditions, although naturally we didn't spot any horses. The second day, however, made up for it with a vengeance. We camped that night in a tongue of bush on the edge of the open tops on the broad ridgeline to the immediate south of the southern bend of the Waipakihi River. By that stage it had begun to rain. In The Beans Burn rock biwy after the weather cleared Smith the early hours of Sunday morning Harry we were woken by one of the most spectacular thunder and lightning displays I have ever vast stretches of hundreds and hundreds of metres at a witnessed. Claps of thunder burst deafeningly directly time, we struggled through oceans of continuous fallen overhead. Lightning bolts split the sky. The rain became trees. You would climb laboriously over one awkward heavy and persistent. log after another, then flounder around waist- or neckdeep in the spaces in between. Sometimes the best way Next morning we had to choose how we were going to to make forward progress was to walk along the fallen get out. The original plan had been to drop into the bend trees, trying to progress from one to another without in the Waipakihi and follow the river out to the roadend, descending to the ground at all. When the going got where we were due to be picked up that afternoon. The steeper we sidled for long stretches around hillsides alternatives were to head right back out the way we had through tangles of nettles and bush lawyer. Very occacome, or to head west along the ridgeline and drop into sionally we could emerge onto grassy flats for a short the Waipakihi further down. Both of these options in- stretch, but this was just the fates teasing us, raising our volved exposed travel on the open tops; neither of them hopes temporarily before dashing them once more and seemed particularly attractive. We elected to continue plunging us back into the nightmare of the bush. with our original route. We knew, of course, that the Waipakihi would be up, but we would be on the right We realised later that this devastation must have been side of it and we thought we would be able where nec- caused by Cyclone Bola, which swept through this area essary to sidle along the banks through the bush. This, a decade ago. This is what Oriwa Ridge in the Tararuas it turned out, was a big mistake. must have been like thirty or forty years ago when it was a notoriously "tough" trip following the devastation of That day turned into one of the longest, most miserable the huge storm back in 1936. continuous grovels - have done for a long time. Almost immediately from the moment we left camp the bush Finally, at about 8o'clock that night, we emerged tired, was thick and tangled. Then we found, through insuffi- muddy, scratched, bloody, bruised, and exhausted - but cient attention to the map and compass, that we were immensely thankful at the roadend after 13 hours of on the wrong spur and had to grovel sideways round the almost continuous hard going with only the briefest of hillside for some distance to pick up the correct one. Ar- stops for lunch, only to find that there was no-one waitriving at the bottom of the spur we were confronted with ing for us there. We were three hours late and our ride a raging torrent - and this was a mere side creek had obviously given up on us and left for home. It was some distance upstream from the main river. When we with complete resignation that we put our heads down finally hit the river it was a seething brown mass of wa- and began the steep climb up the road away from the ter, evil and malicious. Any lingering hopes of wander- river, the start of the long road-walk out to the Desert ing down the open valley floor beside the river vanished Road. Then just as we were nearing the crest ofthe hill, completely. we heard a car approaching in the distance. Our hopes rose. Could it be? Yes! It was our driver, who had de- The rest of the day was one of almost continuous, never- cided to check out the roadend one last time before reending grovelling. In places we bashed through thick porting us overdue to the police in Waiouru. I don'tthink masses ofyoung bonsai beech forest. In other places, for ihave ever felt SO grateful in all my life. Tramping and Mountaineering 1997