Garden of Eden Ice Plateau, Rangitata to Whataroa

John Pascoe made one of the first recorded crossings of this Ice plateau, back in the 40's. At the end of his trip, he rocked into Harihari and had a beer with the locals. One of those locals was gifted his photo albulm of the trip.

The Grand niece of that local was Hayley, who saw this albulm, read Pascoe's books and developed a keen interest in following in John's footsteps. This trip is the end result.

The Garden's are two Ice plateau's, located to the north east of Aoraki/Mt Cook NP, and are the last major flat glaciers you'd encounter as you moved away from that park. The Garden of Allah is linked by a few ice falls with the Garden of Eden and both plateau's are riddled with theological names for features.

The Garden of Eden is about 9km long and 1km wide. It's mostly flat through the middle, but there are still plenty of small crevasses to avoid.

Our trip began with a Helicopter ride from Methven to the edge of the Adams Wilderness where the Gardens are located.

Steph crouches as the Squirrel departs

We couldn't help feel like we'd cheated a bit, avoiding two days of rough gravel bashing in the Rangitata and Havelock valleys, but with a small weather window and pretty heavy packs we quickly got over it..

Ascending the Wee McGregor Glacier

There was still a bit of vertical to do, so after a brief snow travel and glacier travel lecture for the newbies, we set off up the Wee McGregor Glacier toward's Perth Col.

Soon we were enshrouded with clouds and traveled up over the col and onwards to the Gardens in whiteout. The compass must have worked, because soon we emerged from the cloud and arrived on the Garden of Eden.

Tim and Hayley on the Garden of Eden, enroute to Adams Col

It was cool and windy, but the Garden iself was clear. Peaks faded off into the distance and the major summits stood tall. Aoraki, Tasman and Elie de Beaumont were all easily identifiable. Beign late in the season, all the snow was well consolidated and crevasses quite open. Still, we kept a rope on and tiptoed our way without too much trouble to Adam's Col for the night.

Chucky weaving through the slots

That night we camped on small rock ledges at Adams Col, in perfect weather. Next mornign it was still great and we enjoyed wonderful views during the traverse of the Ice cap.

Nearing Angel Col (Perth Col just visible in top right)

Icefall near Angel Col

Abel Ice Fall

On reaching the end of the Gardens, we traversed onto the adverse glacier, before descending steep, scrambly and loose rock to the valley floor. The route finding was not too hard in dry weather and good vis, but in rain/cloud it would probably result in absieling..

Hayley looks over the Adverse Glacier, with 'The Great Unknown' peak behind

We rock hopped our way down the Moraine and found ourselves a lovely campsite in the lower Adverse Creek. Even had a swim before the sun set!.

Low in Adverse Valley

Early on day 3, we continued our descent of Adverse Stream, with some steep rock hopping, scrambling and sidling above the water. At the Perth Confluence, we teamed up for the crossing which wasn't too hard at all.

Then immediately after the crossing, Brad stepped on a loose rock which rolled and crushed his calf between two other rocks. After getting over the shock, we realised that although nothing was badly damaged, Brad was going to be in a lot of pain and moving slowly. We toked him up with pain killers and anti-inflamatory drugs whilst the heaviest of his gear was redistributed.

And still the sky was clear...


Upper Perth River

The Upper Perth river was by far some of the toughest river bashing i've done. Huge house sized boulders, stacked delicately on top of one another were fringed on one side by grade 4-5 whitewater and the other by meters per hour westland scrub.

It took nearly 12 hours to manage 8km down this river, though with retrospect and no injuries, it would have been closer to a 1km per hour pace.

The Rata in bloom in the upper Perth


Passing between the huge boulders in the Perth River


It was with huge relief that we collapsed outside Scone hut at the end of our day.

Day four dawned a little murky and we expected a bit of rain. We weren't dissapointed, though it wasn't particularly hard rain..

Tim in the middle Perth

There were a couple of steep and scrambly 'up and overs' to sidle bluffs, combined with endless boulder hopping and occaisonal forest sections. We rocked up to Nolan's hut rather bedraggled and still with a 'large day' hangover from the Perth.

It was still early in the day, so we spent the afternoon eating, reading magazines and yarning about historic huts..

Very interesting reading at Nolan's Hut

Chucky, Steph, Grant, Brad, Hayley and Tim at Nolan's Hut

From Nolan's hut, we wandered in light rain showers past Hughes stream, up and over a flat plateau to the Whataroa river swingbridge. The track was sometimes mellow and quick, but overall it was 'standard' quality.

Tim crosses the Whataroa Gorge

After the Whataroa Swingbridge it was a straightforward wander out down the valley, but it did seem to go on and on and on... We were pretty stoked to finally arrive at the road end, where the promise of a shower, beer and feed was eagerly taken up.