Avalanche Peak 1833m 12 hours

I would like to preface this by stating that Kiwi Trampers are Bat-Shit Crazy. This is by far the most difficult hike I have ever undertaken, yet it was classified as "moderate" in 2 out of 3 guidebooks...

We started the trek around just after noon on Saturday. The beginning of the hike (via Scott's Track) is a steep hike up the side of the mountain, switching back only a few times. There are sections of the trail where you will meet with 3 to 4 feet high steps made of either mud and tree roots, or stone. after approximately two hours of hiking this, you begin to ascend the ridge that eventually leads you to the summit of Avalanche Peak (which you still can't see).


(if you look close on the bottom right you will see some trampers coming down the track)

(Matthias and Emma gearing up after lunch for the last push to the top)

On the ridge you alternate between walking on near-knife-edge ridge line and scrambling over boulder fields. The last 100 vertical feet or so you get into a combination of each. the summit itself is very small, and very narrow. Once we reached the peak, we began to descend down the opposite side in the exact same terrain. After descending a few hundred feet, we came to a saddle that joined up with another ridge heading off toward Mt. Rolleston.


(Avalanche Peak: The summit is the middle little bump)

(Crow Glacier from near the summit of Avalanche Peak)

We followed the ridge up and down three saddles until we finally came to the appropriately marked Scree Slope to begin out descent to the Crow River. If you become impatient and decide to head down another scree slope, you will fall off a bluff and more than likely die. The view from the top of the slope is very deceiving - it looks like it will only take 15-20 minutes to descend. Over and hour later we all got to the bottom (yours truly being last). It is about at this point I noticed that my boots had ripped open on the side - and I only got them in December.


Stink!

Another few kilometers down river, and over boulders the size of basketballs, we finally make it to the Crow Hut around 8:20. The hut itself is a very nicely built one room building with 5 bunk-beds (10 total) on one side and a kitchen/eating/sitting area on the other. The weather was great all weekend, especially at night when the sky (finally) did not cloud over and we were rewarded with a great view of the sky.


(Milky Way as seen from Crow Hut facing south-east-ish. I had focus set to infinity, but the image still wasn't turning out, I'll have to do some checking up on this problem...)

The next day we awoke, ate breakfast, packed up and headed down the Crow River. The first bit was the same as the last, big boulders, however we soon began to trek a little into the woods and finally across the river (several times). After the first few kilometers, the rocks became much smaller and much more manageable. We continued to follow the Crow River for the next two hours.


(Mt. Rolleston during sunrise from just north of Crow Hut)

At one point we passed a couple of trampers who had stayed the night at the hut with us; they had stopped and one was lying down. Apparently she was not feeling well (dizzy, nauseated, etc) and could not continue to walk out. We got their information and eventually passed it along to the Department of Conservation once we got back. The lady was eventually air lifted out by Canterbury's only air rescue helicopter about 4 hours later.

The Crow soon met up with the Waimakariri River - this is where the fun begins. The last two hours of our trip involved countless river crossings - getting us to the point of "Our feet are already wet, no use trying to boulder hop across." We finally got to the car park at about 1:30 and headed back to sign out at the DOC.

Overall it was a great trip, however I do not think I will be heading to Avalanche Peak again until I get into better shape.


(Robin, Matthias, Emma, Katie, Me with Crow River and Mt. Rolleston in the Background)