This text was read by OCR from a scanned newsletter and has not been proofread yet, so expect odd characters and mistakes.
by Noelyn Gordon-Glassford After doing the Alpine Instruction Course, I was keen to try out my newly acquired skills in an area that I had never been to before. There were six in our group - Harry Smith, Lyndsay Fletcher, Geoff Crockford, Bob Cockeram and Robbie Morrison - all rather experienced trampers, then there was me. On Friday evening WT&MC’s punters for the weekend gathered at the ferry terminal. It was chaos! but due to the great organisational skills of Robbie we were all herded onto the ferry. The day was brilliant and the weekend was promising good weather ... We arrived at St Arnaud shortly after midnight. Two cyclists who had kipped down at the shelter were rudely awoken when we arrived en masse and within minutes the floor was covered in all manner of gear and bodies. Saturday morning dawned fine with some low cloud. We caught the water taxi acrss Lake Rotoiti. From there it was a 4 hour trek up the Travers river to Johr Tait Hut for lunch. The day was perfect and very hot. After lunch it was a two hour slog up to Cupola Hut which is in a most beautiful location positioned just at the bushline with exquisite mountain panaramas. Mt Hopeless is an awesome peak which looked very steep and challenging. Sunday was the day for our summit bid of Mt Cupola (2263m). It dawned misty but nevertheless we set off at the unearthly hour of 5.30 am. The snow, even at this stage was soft and wet. At about 8.15 am the weather still hadn’t cleared and Lyndsay decided it was going to crap out (which it did) and he went back down to the cosy hut. The rest of us decided to push on in the top of the cloud clearing. / For a rank amateur like myself it was reasonably steep in places (and scary), but the snow was soft and deep. There are a series of couloirs up to the summit which se set off up. Robbie and I roped up in several places and so very slowly we made our way up. By this stage the weather was definitely deteriorating. Anyway, we kept going up - following Bob’s footsteps with a minor aetour down a gut and then we slowly plugged our way to the top. By
this stage it was already 12 noon and was turning into an epic. I frequently thought about being back at the hut toasting my toes in front of the coal stove. The downward journey was straight forward. Monday was disgusting - it was pouring with rain and it was most difficult extracting myself from my cosy sleeping bag. I got back to the head of Lake Rotoiti about 12 midday. Rob, Geoff and Harry decided to walk out while the rest of us sunned ourselves and swatted sandflies before getting the boat back. All in all it was a great experience for me with excellent company and awesome views and a good chance to practice some skills I had learnt from Lyndsay on the AIcCs.