This text was read by OCR from a scanned newsletter and has not been proofread yet, so expect odd characters and mistakes.
Fitness Essential Tramp - 1 to 3 August by Alistair Young
I'd always looked with longing at the chain of mountains between Bridge peak and Junction knob in the northern tararuas - I liked the idea of entering the hills and exiting them at the same point (otaki forks) and knocking of some big tops in one weekend. Ive been told the tramp along this "southern main range" was very physical.
Over the years I’ve tramped much but not all of this line of hills, it was in fact the last section of tararua tops I hadn't bagged, so I was delighted to see it on the schedule. I signed up, but with some reservations as the trip had been relabelled fitness essential because of the short days of winter. I've done my share of fit trips - they can be tough, but FEs are in another class and push you to breaking and beyond, not surprisingly there were only two of us on the trip, myself and the leader Steve Austin (aka the bionic man).
We left on friday night after severe midweek storms with a bad forecast looming (Huey the mountain god of bad weather was prowling the area with evil intent), I was convinced we'd take a dive and tramp to field or Kime for a cruisy easy-medium weekend.
The Friday night tramp to field hut proved incredibly difficult - the track has been destroyed by fallen trees it was almost impossible to follow at night - and two minutes from field hut after negotiating a fallen tree we actually headed back down the track - only realising our mistake when we met the medium group who took great delight in tormenting us for our "navigational skills". We went to bed red faced with their shrieks of mockery ringing in our ears.
Saturday we left at 6.30am - it was windy but reasonably clear, and we got to bridge peak with minimum fuss so we decided to give it a go. We moved very quickly across the tops to macintosh, the wind was strong but not dangerous and there was no snow. From macintosh to maungahuka was more physical with many ups and downs, but the track to and from the ladder has been greatly improved with the addition of many new ropes and chains.
We had a quick lunch and brew and started off, by this the time the wind had become very strong and cold, but the route was relatively flat - we sped along to aokaparangi - for a long climb up that absolute beast of a hill, I had to stop twice on the brute for chocolate and was knackered at the top, but we couid not rest - it was too cold and we were short on time so we powered across the final section of tops diving into the beech covered saddle between kahiwiroa and crawford, into the trees and out of the wind - it was a beautiful goblin forest our spirits soared as andersons hut was reasonably close.
We continued for another 30 minutes before steve started to show the symptoms of extreme exhaustion, he complained of a ringing in his ears and numb arms, his speech became slurred he was unable to continue so I set up a huntec bivvy and steve got into bed and I prepared the meal.
I was amazed at the speed a person can descend into exhaustion, I was glad that it happened off the tops where we could erect a fly. I had been made aware of the life saving logic of the clubs policy of always carrying a fly - we were bivvied only 10 minutes walk from anderson hut but in steve’s condition it may as well have been 10 hours walk away.
The meal was delicious - spicy sweet and sour pork with veg, steve couldn’t eat anything, but had slept while I cooked and had recovered, things were looking up.
I got into my pit and looked forward to some well earned sleep, but this was Hueys domain and we were not welcome here, within 2 minutes of lying down a massive wind blast came through the trees lifting up the fly and showering us in freezing rain, the storm front had hit. I reset the fly and we dressed and packed, and headed along the track - to andersons hut 10 minutes away - what a welcome sight it was. A hot brew and a warm pit and the hardships of the day were long forgotten - we slept well and long.
The next day we left in the mother of all westerly gales along tracks that had become streams up onto the exposed tops where we met Huey the winged terror of the tararuas with his harem of shrieking furies, the wind was as strong as any I’ve encountered, we battled along to shoulder knob and descended down the never ending hill to waitewaewae for a pleasant lunch before rolling out to meet craig’s medium-fit group. Back in the van steve and I finally congratulated each other - it was an epic tramp full of ups and downs but brilliant one of the best and also one of the worst tararua tramps I’ve ever done.
Punters: Steve Austin (leader), Alistair Young.