Moirs Nth Ridge, (Attempt Two) Darran Mountains

Upon returning from our first try at Moir’s North Ridge, we’d decided that we really needed to go back and have a second crack at it. With the correct equipment and knowledge of the terrain we were confident that it was within our abilities.

Another perfect Darrans day greeted us and we were soon off climbing our way to Homer Saddle. Upon arriving at the Saddle, a stiff breeze greeted us. Gearing up, we were a little unnerved as the occasional gust came and threw us off balance. Soloing the ridge in these conditions was going to be interesting.

As soon as we began to climb, the wind began to exact its psychological toll. We made it about two thirds the way along the ridge before we decided to call it quits. Again, we just weren’t comfortable and not really having fun.

Back at Homer, we packed up our gear and said good bye to the Darrans. I was satisfied that we’d given it a good try and found our experience and mettle wanting. At least we’d given it a good crack. Perhaps in years to come with more climbing under my belt, I could return

It felt as though a huge weight had been lifted from our consciences as we drove south toward Te Anau. Finding a nice quiet campsite, Cindy and I had a gear sort out between bouts of fishing, reading, eating and beer drinking. Neither of us even made it close to midnight….

Barrier Knob, Darran Mountains

Today’s weather was supposed to be a bit iffy, so we decided on a more mellow goal for the day. We’d hike up the Gertrude Valley and on to Barrier Peak via the Gertrude Saddle if the weather looked conducive.

The high cloud shielded us from the sun as we strode up valley on a good track. Above the small section of native bush, the route meandered through low alpine scrub and up to the tussock line. As we walked up the valley, we noted the evidence of massive avalanches from winter past. All around the tussock lay flattened where the debris used to lie. Slightly further on, the snow debris had metamorphosed into a uniform snow sheet.

We were awed again by the sheer walls that flanked the valley. To the west, the Psycopath wall of Mt Talbot, home to a 500m grade 22 vegetated rock climb. To the East, the walls of Crosscut were dissected by numerous amazingly vertical canyons of huge proportion.

When the valley steepened we sidled out of the main watercourse and climbed the true right. Not far above, we weaved back across the stream and onto the true left. Soon we were climbing the immaculate granite slick rock that lead us toward Black Lake.

An old set of cables enticed us up through the steeper bits to our vantage point of the lake. Still brimming with icebergs, the lake was fantastically beautiful.

Continuing up the cables and then up snow slopes, we plugged our way up to Gertrude Saddle. Cindy and I were joined by Charlie Kea for lunch, as we lay back and enjoyed the view down towards the Tasman. Collossal valleys emptied into the main valley before us, Ridges seemed vertical and all ended abruptly. It was indeed an incredible sight.

Barrier Knob is normally a waypoint on the route for serious climbers heading over into Moraine Creek/Lake Adeliade to climb routes on Sabre and other classic peaks. But today, it was our final goal. We walked up easy slabs, Charlie Kea in constant tow until it was time for crampons. Though the snow was reasonably soft, it was all snow up until the summit.

As we continued upwards, the cloud base continued down. Wishing we’d begun our day a bit sooner, we sped up to try and bag the peak before we were whited out. Soon it began to snow and we decided it wasn’t really worth continuing, despite being within 100m of the summit. It wouldn’t take much for us to wander over a cliff or cornice…

Our days adventure was completed as a 4 hour round trip.

North Ridge of Mt Moir

Enough of the stalling, time for action. The clear skies of the pre-dawn confirmed the forecast and quickened our preparations. We’d decided on the north ridge of Mt Moir as our ‘warm up’. Simply noted as “A long ridge climb on stunning rock” we took one of our half ropes and an anorexic rack just incase it was worth a little protection.

Climbing the scree to Homer Saddle was very straight forward and seemed not too crazily different from all my other mountain experiences, but I was in for a shock. Arriving at Homer Saddle, I nearly turned around and walked straight back. There in front of me was the colossal upper cirque of the Cleddau valley. A 700m drop to the Milford Rd lay but meters in front of me. I cast my eye to the south and gasped when I saw the knife edged and dreadfully exposed ridge that we were intending to climb. The non-insignificant bulk of Moir’s Mate seemed to be rudely interrupt our ridge. We’d need to go over rather than around and it looked scary.

My eyes traced the outlines of Mate’s Little Brother and Moir itself, familiar from hours spent studying the guide book. The understated tones of Craig Jefferies ran through my mind.. “it has been known to reduce climbers to crawling on all fours in places”

I could have easily turned around and gone the other way, but Cindy (bless her cotton socks) was full of keen and encouragement. After a little goading, I began southwards on the sharp ridge. The hardest parts of the scramble were right near the start. A sharp ‘Cheval’ led to an exposed hand traverse. We opted to do a pitch round the hand traverse, but put the rope away and soloed on.

The further I went, the more relaxed my immeadiate thoughts became, but more unnerved my inner self. I felt as though we were painting ourselves into a bit of a corner, with every move onwards meaning we had to do it in reverse. Several scrambles were no mistake moves, but all were on solid rock and good holds. Slowly I began to feel more at ease and even began to enjoy myself a little. Until, that is, we arrived at the shoulder of Moir’s Mate.

We’d brought about half our climbing gear and pretty much needed the other half to safely continue. Cindy and I mused about what it would mean to continue, but in the end we realized it would be foolish to do so. If only for halving the number of rappels, we wished for our other rope and protection. Dissapointed, we began the long careful journey back to the Saddle.

I felt a huge sigh of relief when we arrived on large flatness of the Saddle. Instantly I was no longer soloing, but tramping again; familiar and simple.

Back at the hut, we lamented our retreat, but took solace that it was only our first day. Now we had some experience of the terrain..

Darrans Waterfalls

We awoke to the promised rain…. Though the adjective ‘Biblical’ wasn’t appended, it would have been apt. This time we were agape at the intensity of the precipitation that now obscured all the Diorite from view. Much of the day was spent reading at Homer, but we made a brief foray through to Milford Sound for a coffee, a weather report and a shower.

Oh the Waterfalls!! Milford Sound itself was a non event, but the drive there something else altogether. Never have I seen so many humungous waterfalls!! Each 500-700m tall, they numbered in the hundreds. Heli-canyoning might just catch on here… Again I sat mesmerized, in a pattern that was to repeat itself on each day we spent here..

Arriving in the Darrans

“I wonder what sort of Rental Car they’ll give us?”

“Ha, probably this ridiculous little gold Jellybean!”

Picking up the Jellybean at Dunedin Airport, we drove south to meet up with Al Walker in Balclutha. I’d been put on to him by a climbing acquaintance and had been yarning about the finer details of the routes we were interested in. Al was a very welcoming gentlemen and we enjoyed a tasty lunch and jucy climbing stories during our short visit.

Onwards to the Darrans, the blue skies and mind boggling views made a mockery of the dismal forecast. Like I have before in the Dolomites of Italy and the Canyonlands of Utah, I stared wided eyed and mouth agape. The slabs rose at ridiculous angles towards the gnarled and lofty summit pyramids. Waterfalls careered down canyons and chasms. Everything looked vertical. Everything looked scary. We’d certainly gone and bitten off a giant chunk of NZ… It was so incredible to see such mesmerizing terrain in my very own homeland.

Yvon Choiunard (that dude who pioneered a lot of the Big wall routes in Yosemite as well as Black Diamond Ltd and Patagonia Ltd) once said on a trip to the Darrans "This would be a better Big Wall climbing area than Yosemite... if it wasn't for the weather.."

We drove up to Homer Saddle and got out of the Jellybean to inspect the MacPherson Cirque. A hanging glacier fed dozens of tiny waterfalls that made a bee line down the sheer slabs. In that perfect evening we stood in awe before the chill brought us back to reality.

Back toward Homer Hut, we coaxed the Jellybean across the dry ford and into the ‘front lawn’ of the Hut. Unpacking our gear, we were soon welcomed by the Hut Warden, none other than Derek Thatcher, one of NZ’s hardest rock climbers. He offered us a brew, that we gladly accepted. Derek was joined by Jonothan Clearwater (!) who no doubt was slightly surprised when I mentioned that we were probably related..

Mt Karioi Tramp

Despite having a fun days surfing the day before, I wasn’t really psyched to go again the next day. I’d spied the track to Mt Karioi as we drove from Raglan out to the secluded surf beach and with a bit of consultation to the little guide book I just happened to bring along, my day’s adventure was decided on.

Borrowing a small raincoat and head torch from my hosts and making use of an early Christmas present (Patagonia polar fleece) I scraped together enough gear to be safe then made my way to the road end.

It was a scorching hot summer’s day and I was glad that I was wearing a white cotton T-shirt. The very property that makes cotton a death trap in cold weather came to my aid in the intense dry heat.

The track times indicated a 6hr return trip to the summit. Since we were celebrating Christmas today and having a big evening meal, I didn’t really have 6hrs to play with... So I put my running shoes into gear and made my best pace along the route.

Initially I climbed through Manuka scrub before emerging to a grassy ridge offering great views out toward the coast. Entering the bush again the track was mostly of good quality and weaved its way upward through the native scrub.

The guide book had promised several steep sections that had things like ladders and chains in place. This was one of the main interest getters for me, so I was quite excited when the first bit of fixed gear came into view. However, it really puzzled me. The route was neither difficult nor exposed; though I guess people without climbing backgrounds may have found it a little interesting.

Further on from the ladder, I encountered the chain. Laying down a very steep slippery gully, the chain was useful on both the ascent and descent. Though a careful tramper could manage without too much worry, it was worth having to reduce the danger.

Not far above the chains, the track branched and offered me a side option to a view point. Sitting down and admiring the views out to Raglan, I eagerly devoured my lunch and swigged a nice big gulp of cordial.

Checking my watch, I saw that I’d halved the track time. Looking to the east, I could see the undulating level ridge that led onwards to the true summit of Mt Karioi. The guidebook was a bit ambivalent as to whether it was really worth continuing on. Since I was well ahead of schedule, the day was so lovely and the walking enjoyable, I elected to continue on.

The final stretch to the summit traversed some interesting boulders on the sharp ridge. Where the track sidled and avoided the ridge, I bouldered up onto the ridge and balanced my way along. There was barely a breath of wind and I loved being up there. At the summit was a radio transmitter, track information and a helipad.

I plonked myself on a rock above the helipad and enjoyed my surroundings. To the north I could see all of Raglan Harbour, to the east Mt Pirongia and to the south Kawhia harbor. What a fantastic day! Spending only a short time at the summit, I retraced my steps quickly back to the car to make a round trip time of 3.5hrs. A fantastic impromptu tramp to a neat area…

Bay One Crag, Manawatu Gorge

After finishing early on our last day of work for the year, I managed to convince Campbell Harvey and Mike Chalmers to come with me out to Bay One for a few hours of climbing.

Cam hadn’t climbed for ages, so we spent a little while on Groovy Gecko (14) getting the hang of things. I practised climbing in both my Tramping and Mountaineering boots, deciding the latter was going to be more appropriate for the upcoming Darrans trip. Cam lead Groovy Gecko, then Mike lead it and escaped off to Wellington.

I then lead Andy’s Arete (15) in my mountain boots, brought up Cam then we scrambled out and went home.

Rangitikei River Trout Fishing

Dad came down to Palmy to have a flight in the Iroquois during the 3 Sqn Family Day. After his flight, we went out for a bit of a fish on the Rangitikei River, just south of Hunterville. Arriving at the road end, we thought we’d taken a wrong turn when ‘Private Property- NO ENTRY” signs greeted us. But with a little snooping about, we found an access spot a bit further back down the road.









Dad with our first fish of the day

First catch of the day

Crossing the river, we were amazed at how tepid the waters were. Fishing upstream, we passed a pair of fly fisherman working a pool. The river was quite wide and generally quite shallow, though it had the odd deeper section.

Just above the fly fisherman, Dad hooked and landed the first Trout. It was just a small guy, but we kept it so we’d have something for dinner. Not too far upstream, I hooked into a fish at a great looking pool. Initially it just sat there deep in the current, but soon began peeling line off my little rod. I had to follow it downstream a ways to avoid getting too much line out. I was rapt when I finally beached the fantastically conditioned Rainbow.

My best trout of the day :)













Dad quickly evened the score with a similar sized trout from the same pool, though his one wasn’t quite as conditioned and gave up pretty quickly.

Further upstream, we came to a difficult ford. We both agreed that we’d gone far enough today, so sat down for a cup of tea prior to retracing our steps back to the car

On the way back, Dad stopped at the pool where the other guys were fishing and proceeded to land another nice trout from right under the other fisherman’s nose!

We had a delicious dinner that night with Kay; freshly baked trout with salad and chips!

Dad and I