Wilderness June 2015

New Zealand’s magazine of the outdoors since 1991

JUNE 2015

know more, do more, live more

12 JETBOIL

EXPLORE THE HEAVENS BUILD A SNOW CAVE HIDE AWAY IN A RIVERSIDE HUT PLUS MANY MORE WAYS TO MAKE THIS

YOUR

BEST WINTER EVER

MINIMO STOVES WORTH $300 TO GIVE AWAY (SEE P62)

‘MY EIGHT DAY

HORROR’

HUNGRY, ALONE AND INJURED IN WEST COAST TIGER COUNTRY

TREASURE ISLAND

TRAMPING GOLD ON STEWART ISLAND’S LESS TRODDEN TRAIL

INSULATED JACKETS STAY WARM IN THE BITTER COLD

EXPLORE! MUSIC TYCOON’S OTAGO HIGH COUNTRY

www.wildernessmag.co.nz

NZ $9.95 Aust $9.95 INCL GST

» SKI TOURING THE TASMAN GLACIER » WHY THE DEATH OF TRAMPING IS OVERRATED »THREE-SEASON SLEEPING BAG REVIEW »TRIPS TO COROMANDEL, FIORDLAND, MT

COOK, ARTHUR’S PASS, TONGARIRO AND MORE

YOUR TRIPS, YOUR PIX

What did you get up to last weekend?

Sefton and Felix Williamson waded across the Clarence River

Sue Wrathall climbed Arthur’s Pass NP’s Avalanche Peak Track

Max and Sophie Jenkins explored the Olivine Ice Plateau

Temanawa and Tairoa Marshall stopped by Richards Knob in the Tararuas

Lynton Downs School pupils braved Sawcut Gorge in Marlborough

Tim Harris climbed Cascade Saddle in Mt Aspiring NP

Toni, Chris, Emma, Sarah, Sam and Victoria Charles climbed Mt Ngauruhoe

Chris and Jeff Salmon visited Lake Lockett in Kahurangi NP

Ange Minto and Terry Crippen climbed Mt Tyndall, Mt Aspiring NP

Michelle Dalton and Alistair Coppard walked Oxford Forest’s Wharfedale Track

SEND YOUR PIX

Get your photo published here and you’ll receive the ‘Light My Fire’ FireSteel 2.0 ($22) with emergency whistle and 3000°C spark that works wet lighting stoves and fires or as an emergency signal. See ampro.co.nz for more.

Full submission details at wildernessmag.co.nz search Last Weekend.

8 JUNE 2015

WAYPOINTS

ALPINE SANCTUARY Colin Todd Hut, Mt Aspiring National Park /

A

fter waiting out a storm for several days, a guide and his client approach Colin Todd Hut in glorious conditions.

Perched at 1800m on Shipowner Ridge, just 300m below the junction with the North West Ridge of Mt Aspiring, this location offers spectacular views across the Bonar Glacier, of Mt Aspiring itself and out to the Tasman Sea. The grand sense of scale, remoteness and inhospitable feeling that one gets up there is also wonderful.

The cosy, red alpine hut offers refuge from the notorious weather and is the base for climbing the classic North West Ridge, which is the

Approaching Colin Todd Hut via the Bonar Glacier

DIFFICULT

most commonly guided route on Mt Aspiring.

The climb takes 10-12hr return from Colin Todd Hut. The hut is dedicated to Colin Todd, a Dunedin climber who was very active in the post-war years and was killed in a motorcycle accident at the age of 28. Shortly after his death, the Otago Section of the New Zealand Alpine Club received an anonymous donation to finance an alpine hut in his memory.

The easiest access is via helicopter from Bevan Col, making necessary a crossing of the Bonar Glacier using rope, crampons and ice axe.

- Grant Maslowski

WILD FILE Access The easy option is by helicopter to Bevan Col followed by a crossing of the Bonar Glacier. Alternatively, walking access via the Matukituki River West Branch, climbing to either Bevan Col or Quarterdeck Pass and crossing the Bonar Glacier Grade Difficult Time 1.5hr from Bevan Col; 1.5-2 days via West Matukituki Accommodation Colin Todd Hut, 12 bunks Map CA11

OFF THE BEATEN TRACK

Forests like this are tramping gold

PURE T

GOLD ON

STEWART

ISLAND STEWART ISLAND’S SOUTHERN CIRCUIT OFFERS TOUGH TRAMPING INTERSPERSED WITH WILDLIFE ENCOUNTERS AND AMAZING FOREST, BEACH AND RIVER WALKING, DISCOVERS ALISTAIR HALL

he experts all agree: there’s gold to be found on Stewart Island. It’s not the kind that flashes in the sunlight, or lies on the bottom of a stream, though. This gold floats on the sea until it washes up on Mason Bay where it waits to be discovered by treasure hunters.

I first heard about floating gold, or ambergris as it is technically known, from Jessica whose last name I never learned. I don’t normally talk to strangers on a plane, but Jessica was sitting next to me and prior to taking her seat I spilled water all over it, forcing me to apologise profusely and offer to swap places.

Ice broken, Jessica provided fine company for the flight from Auckland. She happened to know a lot about sperm whale vomit, which is essentially what ambergris is before it is magicked into perfume by companies like Calvin Klein. She was a 14 year veteran with DOC, seven of those heading the department on Stewart Island, before taking redundancy in the latest restructure, which by her account is going ‘swimmingly’.

“Keep an eye out for ambergris,” she said knowingly when she found out I was heading for her old stomping ground. “Mason Bay is tops for that. Locals even go over there specially to scour the beach for it.”

Jessica might not have been so open about where to find the fabulously valuable floating gold if she had known what happened to the last person to share the closely held Stewart Island secret. English molecular biologist Christopher Kemp received hate mail and threats of legal action after writing his 2014 book Floating Gold: A natural (and unnatural) history of ambergris. He’d foolishly mentioned that Stewart Island was known for its highquality ambergris. A mistake I feel compelled to repeat.

Jessica also warned the Southern Circuit is not for everyone. “It’s tough,” she said. “It’s for people who have done some tramping before.” I guess that wasn’t really a secret, but I still wished she’d left it unsaid.

My excitement at visiting the island and spending the next three days exploring its southern reaches was suddenly replaced with apprehension. I’d seen photos and heard tales of the notorious mud and track flooding, but always assumed they were exaggerations or rarities.

Perhaps sensing my growing unease, Jessica asked if I had ever seen a kiwi in the wild before. “Well you will by the end of this trip.”

I was doing a reverse loop: Mason Bay to Freds Camp Hut via Doughboy Bay. Most www.wildernessmag.co.nz

33

NEIL SILVERWOOD

MOUNTAIN SAFETY

River safety is a major part of backcountry skills courses

Who will train our trampers?

AS OF THIS YEAR, TRAINING IN BACKCOUNTRY SKILLS AND BUSHCRAFT BY THE MOUNTAIN SAFETY COUNCIL WILL BE A THING OF THE PAST. THE ORGANISATION IS CUTTING ITS VOLUNTEERRUN COURSES TO FOCUS ON MESSAGING TO THE MASSES. MATTHEW PIKE ASKS IF THIS IS THE RIGHT DIRECTION IN WHICH TO GO

WILD SNOW

YOUR

BEST WINTER EVER MARK WATSON

Winter is often mistaken for the off-season when it comes to tramping. It needn’t be. We’re all familiar with New Zealand’s frigid climate and the shudder that comes with putting together the words ‘June,’ ‘July’ and ‘August’ with ‘outdoors’.

But with planning and a good sense of adventure, you may find that winter serves up more rewards than you’d expect. You could even end up having your best winter ever.

By Ricky French

Winter photo shoots don’t come much bigger than at Aoraki/Mt Cook National Park

DO A WINTER PHOTOSHOOT You don’t have to be a professional photographer to get a kick out of capturing our country’s winter glory. Crisp, still mornings, with snow-capped mountains and streaks of orange sunlight are perfect. But, New Zealand winters are harsh, mean affairs.A powerful photo could be a portrait of someone striding through the mist, leaning into a southerly, rain lashing their red face. Or it could be a tree tortured by a gale, rain pelting the hut window, tents flattened by a gale. Writer Steve Braunias summed things up when he wrote of the cabin-fever that grips us as we rug up indoors against the beast.

‘All this,’ he writes in his 2001 book, Fool’s Paradise, ‘is winter as it should be. It wants to pick a fight. Heartless, profound, desolate, the loneliest, most harrowing time of the year, a stern and resolute authority, sick of living.

The kind of winter that sounds the hard, clanging bell, and we all hear it, we all know what it means.’