8-9 August 2020

Leader: Tony Quayle

Our plan for this trip was to wander to Sunrise on Saturday, stay the night, then over Te Atuaoparapara and down the Waipawa River on Sunday.

Views of the snow-covered central Ruahines as we drove up past Norsewood on Saturday sowed the first seeds of doubt - a previous encounter with ice on the southern face of Te Atuaoparapara had taught me how treacherous it can be.

Climbing to Sunrise, Marcia trotted on ahead to score some bunks while the rest of us paced ourselves up the hill. Although there’d been plenty of cars in the carpark there was still space when we reached the hut, but a couple of large parties arriving behind us swelled it to about double its capacity. Nonetheless, it was a fairly quiet night.

Saturday night was clear and calm, with Paula getting experience of the night when she spotted the Starkink satellite chain passing over. The rest of us made do with the brilliant starscape, captured stunningly on June’s smartphone.

Sunday morning wasn’t so good though, with fresh snow around the hut and an a strong westerly wind. Without packs, we battled as far as Armstrong Saddle, but it clearly wasn’t a day to tackle Te Atuaoparapara. Instead, we dropped down to Waipawa Forks for lunch, down the river, then along the Swamp Track to Triplex and out to the carpark.

An enjoyable weekend, even though we didn’t achieve our goal.

Those on the trip were:

David Williams, Jing Zhou, Marian Cox, Marcia Goode, Owen Cox, Paula Richardson, Tony Quayle, Yingjun Shelton

Currently there is no photo album for this trip.