This text was read by OCR from a scanned newsletter and has not been proofread yet, so expect odd characters and mistakes.
by Alistair Young
I was down to lead a mystery tops trip in the Ruahines for the weekend of Feb 29 starting at the Rangiwhia road end. The route we would take depended on the weather, with good weather I had a big trip in mind. By mid week the weekend forecast was bad, by friday afternoon it was appalling - heavy rain and gale force winds - in the exposed Ruahines this was ruinous. There was a flurry of emails proposing abandoning the trip or rerouting it to drier Hills.
I've done quite a few trips in the Ruahines and I've always found you get at least one good days tramping in them no matter how bad the forecast is - I call ita weather window or a window of opportunity and the six of us were willing to test this theory and take a punt on the Ruahines - we left with our fingers crossed.
Friday night we walked up to Rangi Hut in 80 minutes, under a clear starry sky in very warm conditions - it was perfect tramping weather.
Saturday morning brought us clear skies with some ominous clouds to the south, and red morning sky - but the weather was good for tops tramping with perfect visibility and fabulous views of Ruapehu and Ngarahoe - we set off at 7 hoping for a few hours of good weather - a window of opportunity before the storm rolled in.
50 minutes later and we were on the main Whanahuia Range enjoying perfect views of the western Ruahines the tramping was marred only by one of the punters twisting his ankle quite badly.
We struck north and had our first substantial rest near Maungamahue, the weather was still perfect so our spirits were high. We could see tron Peg Tehekenga and Ruapehu and even the mighty Tararuas to the south, we regretted even considering abandoning the trip - will the Met office ever get it right? We headed east across the catchment area of the Orua river towards Tehekenga, and had another big rest at the base of this peak, one of the punters was feeling unwell and had trouble holding down food - so we decided that with this, Mikes bad ankle and the dodgy weather forecast we would head down to Triangle Hut instead of going over Sawtooth to Pourangaki hut.
We surmounted Tehekenga and headed down the long spur towards Triangle hut arriving at 3.30 at a cosy six bunk hut - made cosier when 8 members of the Wanganui Tramping Club turned up to share it with us !
The day had been a success - we had spent quality time on the tops enjoying perfect views in good tramping weather with no major mishaps - we had taken a punt on the weather and come up trumps - this is a lesson I've learnt time and time again in the Ruahines.
That night we feasted on Mountains of Pork, mashed spud and greens, followed by custard and fruit cake - one of my favourite recipes form the Gourmet Tramping cook book, we retired to bed fully satisfied in the knowledge we had made the right decision going tramping.
It rained heavily overnight making for an interesting river crossing and wet ascent, but once on top the weather opened up again giving us some great views through the clearing clag - we could hardly believe our luck. We headed home in high spirits, stopping for icecreams in Fielding.
Punters:
Sarah Young, Marie Smith, Jeremy Fyke, Mike MeGavin, Dirk Naish, Alistair Young