December 2012 preview

new zealand trail runner magazine inside New Zealand's magazine of the outdoors since 1991

know more, do more, live more

28 national park trips

Mountain huts Top mountaineers share their favourite mountain hideaways

Pack your tent and go places you’ve never even heard of

Outdoor toys

Ultimate Kiwi Christmas gift ideas

Legends

of rock Alex Honnold and

Peter Croft on how to become a pro climber

Intimidation at Denniston december 2012

www.wildernessmag.co.nz NZ $8.95 Aust $8.95 incl GST

Will miners ban trampers from conservation estate?

Plus How to build a bush shelter » Summer hiking clothes

» The Butler Range mapped in 3D! » multiday packs reviewed

contents December 2012

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FEATURES

32 Unknown, unclimbed, unmapped The life and times of Otago mountaineer Scott Gilkison 42 High places

Top mountaineers share their views and stories on their favourite mountain huts

46 National park solitude 28 crowd-free trips in New Zealand’s best parks

60 Christmas gift guide

Great ideas to help you get Christmas shopping over and done with

66 The professionals

66

Legends of rock Alex Honnold and Peter Croft on being a sponsored athlete

70 Hutless in the north

Wilderness investigates why the upper North Island has just 25 DOC huts for a population of 2.2 million people

WAYPOINTS 18 Places

Christmas Flat Hut, Westland Tai Poutini National Park

20 Perfect day How to spend the perfect day around the Central Plateau’s National Park Village 22 See more

Three places to see New Zealand’s only native falcon

24 Top 3

The best family camping spots

18

Cover Camping on Mt Fox, Westland National Park.

Find more great crowd-free national park trips on p46. PHOTO: Petr Hlavacek/nzicescapes.com www.wildernessmag.co.nz

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contents

36

December 2012 REGULARS 4 Editorial

5 Pigeon Post

Your letters to Wilderness

6 Big Picture

The Great South Basin

8 Last weekend

What did you get up to last weekend?

10 Walkshorts News and events

THE MANUAL

Trips, skills, health, gear

14 Five reasons to get outside

WILD TRIPS

14 Wilderness Word

Forest Park

this month

Enter our crossword competition to win great prizes

30 Wild Comment

Aura of Denniston Plateau under threat

36 Off the Beaten Track

A hard Westland trip requiring fitness, dexterity and navigation skills almost ends in disaster

94 Out There

I walk, therefore I am

96 Hotshot

Beautiful ropework

65

Pocket knives and multitools Sharp tools for any occassion

2 december 2012

76 Leon Kinvig Hut, Ruahine 77 Lower Matakuhia Hut,

Waipunga Conservation Area

78 Mt Iron, Wanaka 80 Aparima Huts, Takitimu Conservation Area

81 Wild Cuisine

Corn and feta fritters

81 Wild Skills

Building a bush shelter

94

66 Wild Review

Three multiday packs put to the test

84 Wild range

Butler Range, West Coast Stewardship Land

88 Hiking clothes

A buyer’s guide to the best summer tramping clothes

16

Subscribe to win Win your share of more than $8500 of outdoor gear!

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Available from all Macpac stores nationwide and these independent stores: Shoe Styles 49 Kerikeri Rd – Kerikeri

Out Of Doors 72 Picton St – Howick, Auckland

Out of Doors 604C Port Rd – Whangamata

Mariposa 37 Commercial St – Takaka, Nelson

Racers Edge 99 Ardmore St – Wanaka

Let’s Get Outside 11 The Mall – Queenstown www.wildernessmag.co.nz

3

Your trips, your pix What did you get up to last weekend?

Blair Cottam tramped Woolshed Creek at Mt Somers with his brother Darren

Trampers from Oxford Baptist Church and YWAM battled wind and rain on the Hawdon-Edwards route in Arthur's Pass NP

James, Taina, Paige and Rylee Corric walked into Mangatainoka Hot Springs for the girls’ first multiday tramp

Lisa Podlucky paddled Rai Falls in the Marlborough Sounds

Grace Marchant had to block her nose at the Waitewheta Clearing long drop

Sam and Alex Logan tramped Whirinaki Forest Park

Lucy, Aaron, Dave and Toby climbed Mt Somers

The Mercer family tramped into Coal Creek in Ruahine Forest Park

Send your pix Get your ‘Last weekend’ photo published here and you’ll receive an original Spork courtesy of www.ampro.co.nz. Head to www.wildernessmag.co.nz – search ‘last weekend’ – for full submission criteria.

Flowering kowhai added to the spectacular coastal views for Dargaville Tramping Group’s tramp over northern sections of Maunganui Bluff

8 december 2012

Billie and Luka Hadler walked up Mt Harper

Stu McKellar-Basset climbed Taranki and spent four days waiting out a whiteout and blizzard in Syme Hut

waypoints

Christmas in the Karangarua Christmas Flat Hut, Karangarua Valley, Westland Tai Poutini National Park moderate

18 DECEMber december 2012

D

eep within legendary tahr hunting country, steeped in history and seldom visited on foot sits Christmas Flat Hut – perched at the head of the Karangarua Valley. It’s a place of pristine isolation; a destination in its own right, or an overnight stop on a journey to, or from, the alpine zone.

Open flats surround the unique four bunk hut and the river flows over a rocky bed nearby. It’s the perfect place to lie on grass as the sun makes its lazy arc and mist rolls over Karangarua Saddle far above.

The Karangarua is one of Westland’s most spectacular valleys; its Fiordland-like walls rising over 1800m to jagged schist summits and its floor riven with steep, bouldery streams. Tempering the valley’s drama is a lush sub canopy world of ferns, dripping moss, rare plants, whio and kereru.

Christmas Flat was named by explorer Charlie Douglas after he arrived at the flat on Christmas Eve during his pioneering expedition in 1894. His Christmas treat “a small piece of suet and a few raisins [with which I] made a pudding”.

Christmas Flat Hut is most commonly used by hunters who fly in, but deeper rewards exist for those who reach it on foot.

From the quiet Haast Highway, you’ll traverse country little changed from the time of Douglas as you make your way to Cassell Flat Hut – a place to overnight before the following day’s longer and harder tramp. Between Cassell and Lame Duck Flat several beautiful schist streambeds are crossed, the water lazily trickling from pool to pool. These make great spots for a break.

Onwards towards Christmas Flat Hut there are two mandatory river crossings – easy in low flow, but potentially hazardous in prolonged rain.

If the hut is busy there is plenty of camping space.

- Mark Watson

Wild File Access From Haast Highway.

Park at Copland/Karangarua valleys parking area Grade Moderate Map BX14, BX15 Time Highway to Cassell Flat Hut, 5hr; Cassell Flat Hut to Lame Duck Hut, 5hr; Lame Duck Hut to Christmas Flat Hut, 3hr

www.wildernessmag.co.nz

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After a dangerous slip, the party carefully descends to Adventure Biv

36 december december 2012 2012

Talong toaroha

eetering

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A hard Westland trip requiring fitness, dexterity and navigation skills almost ends in disaster. By Pat Barrett

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www.wildernessmag.co.nz

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national parks

Mouth-watering

national park trips

Lakes Adelaide and South America and Moraine Creek, Fiordland National Park

Every year hundreds of thousands of people visit New Zealand’s 14 national parks. That’s a fantastic turn-out, but sometime after your 15th “hello” or “g’day” to passing trampers as you head to your destination you start to wish you were somewhere quieter. Somewhere more remote – or at least somewhere that feels that way.

Words by Shaun Barnett, Richard Davies, Pat Barrett, Mark Watson, Rob Brown, Nick Groves, Geoff Spearpoint and Alistair Hall

Mark Watson

Here, then, are 28 of the best national park trips you’ve never heard of. All you need to do is pack your tent and get out there.

47

The professionals Becoming a professional outdoor athlete is like a dream come true for many, but it’s not all fun and games in the great outdoors.

Alistair Hall meets rock climbing legends Alex Honnold and Peter Croft and discovers there’s a little payback, too

66 december 2012

Alex Honnold’s reputation for speed climbing without protection earned him a sponsorship deal from The North Face

“This is the most paparazzi experience I’ve ever had,” a bemused-looking Alex Honnold said as the dozen or so photographers crowded in, camera flashes popping and shutters clicking at machine gun speed.

Honnold, 26, is a rock climbing superstar who is no stranger to the limelight. Last year he appeared on 60 Minutes and has had countless web articles, newspaper and magazine pages devoted to him and his audacious free soloing – climbing without protection – achievements, most notable of which is his Yosemite Triple Crown where he climbed the combined 2100m vertical rock faces of Yosemite National Park’s Mt Watkins, El Capitan and Half Dome in 18 hours, 50 minutes.To put that achievement in perspective, consider that it takes most competent climbers three days just to climb El Capitan.

Wilderness met Honnold, along with climber Peter Croft and big mountain skier Kasha Rigby, in Yosemite while on a media junket with other journalists from the Asia Pacific region courtesy of The North Face (TNF), which sponsors all three athletes.

Big time sponsorship is something few New Zealander’s have managed to achieve, despite the nation’s love of sport and the outdoors and with plenty of highly skilled and committed participants. Yet, having an outdoor company provide the wherewithal to enable you to – let’s not beat around the bush – play outside, could sound to a New Zealander too good to be true. And, judging from the antics on display at Yosemite, maybe it is. www.wildernessmag.co.nz

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Ice Lake during the spring thaw

Butler Range West Coast Stewardship Land

Seen from SH6, the serrated peaks of the Butler Range emerge like carnivore’s teeth above the forest and mist. It’s an impressive sight, even by Southern Alps standards.

The range protrudes like a rib radiating out from the main backbone of the Alps, and lies just north of Aoraki/Mt Cook National Park. Little known and little visited, the range deserves more attention from both trampers and climbers. Climbers will find plenty of challenges on peaks like Mt Whataroa, while trampers will appreciate the sculpted schist gorges of the Whataroa River.

Three huts and valley tracks make the area reasonably tramper-friendly, but as with all West Coast rivers, the Whataroa is not be trifled with during bad weather.

According to the guidebook The Canterbury Westland Alps, explorer Charlie Douglas probably named the range after Whataroa resident John Butler, but it has also been known – more poetically – as the ‘Peaks of the Mist Range’.

- Shaun Barnett 84 november december 2012

2 Top Butler Hut Top Butler is reached on a tramping track from Butler Junction Hut in about 2hr. The six-bunk hut is superbly located on a river terrace above a major fork in the Butler River. Ice Lake lies just a couple of hours scramble up the Butler River North Branch.

3 Ice Lake Hemmed in by the Butler Range to the north and the Main Divide of the Southern Alps to the south, Ice Lake boasts one of the most dramatic mountain settings anywhere in the Alps. During a hard winter, the lake freezes over, and the resulting spring thaw is something to behold. Then, during late September or early October, the infant Butler River issues out of the lake mouth with surprising force while ice floes on the surface jostle against each other.

4 Mt Whataroa Mt Whataroa (2123m) rises as a great domed spire of ice near the head of Ice Lake. It was first climbed as late as 1949, a sign of its remoteness.

5 Mawson Glacier and Neish Plateau From Ice Lake experienced trans-alpine trampers can undertake challenging journeys up the Mawson Glacier and over into the neighbouring Godley Valley by way of the Neish Plateau. This route has become increasingly cut up during recent years, and is probably best attempted during winter.

6 Whymper Hut The Whymper branch of the Whataroa River sees less tramping traffic but is popular with hunters, who usually fly in to six-bunk Whymper Hut. Over the summer of 2003-04, DOC relocated the hut to a site better protected from avalanches. From Butler Junction, allow about 4hr to reach Whymper and be aware the route crosses avalanche paths.

7 Whymper Glacier The head of the Whymper Glacier is certainly no place for wimps. In 1897 Tom Fyfe and Malcolm Ross (both of whom were in the first party to climb Aoraki/ Mt Cook in 1894) made a daring and dangerous descent into the Whymper from Lendendfeld Saddle, at the head of the Tasman Glacier. Of one dangerous point on the route Ross later recorded, ‘Here an almost vertical slab of wet rock, between thirty and forty feet, led in a narrow gulch or chimney, down which a waterfall was pouring. There were no hand-holds to speak of – only one or two cracks in the rock – but I thought I could get down.’ Eventually the pair reached the base of the Whymper Glacier, but experienced further trials in the then untracked and unmapped Whataroa River. To my knowledge, no one has ever repeated their escapade.

8 King Peak Although not as high as the nearby peaks of the Butler Range or main divide, 1938m King Peak is an impressive pyramid towering above Top Butler Hut. Indeed, it was once known as Pyramid Peak and there’s a fine view of it looking down valley from Ice Lake, too.

9 Seymour Peak and Grey Pass From Ice Lake, trampers with some trans-alpine experience can make an ascent of Seymour Peak (2400m), on the Main Divide, for superb views over the Butler Valley and neighbouring peaks.

From the lake’s southern shore, climb a ridge with a moderate gradient towards Pt 2040m. From there, the route steepens and is a bit more technical.

Nearby Grey Pass (2253m) leads into the Grey Glacier tributary of the Godley, a route that is increasingly cut off lower down.

Shaun Barnett/Black Robin Photography

1 Butler Junction Hut Lying near the confluence of the Butler and Whataroa Rivers, Butler Junction Hut (8 bunks) will take most parties a very solid 8hr day, or more leisurely two days, to follow the route up the lower Whataroa River, passing exquisite schist gorges en route. Travel is on the true left until above the Perth River junction where a swingbridge crosses to the true right.

10 Mt Ariki At 2193m Mt Ariki is the highest peak on the Butler Range. From the Whataroa Glacier, it’s an easy Grade 1 climb, first ascended in 1949. www.wildernessmag.co.nz

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Beautiful ropework After summiting 1921m Blimit at Arthur’s Pass on a picture perfect day with stunning cloud-cover, John Perry demonstrated his rope-coiling skills.The climb was made as part of a snowcraft course organised by the New Zealand Alpine Club. Shot with a Fuji X100, f/11, 1/400, ISO200.

- Dennis Radermacher

Submit your hotshots to editor@lifestylepublishing.co.nz

96 december 2012