Blog Roddus

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Monday, September 20, 2004

Salmon Creek - 18-19th September 2004

Uncle Roddus Tramping diary: Tramp No. 48
Salmon creek - 18-19th September


Staying with some local tramping for this next trip and again a CTC trip lead by my friends Frank and Honora, who had also lead my previous trip to mt Oxford. Salmon Creek was a frequent destination of this couple about this time and they had done extensive work re cutting the track which DOC hadn't done for some time.
 A party of seven left View Hill car park on a blustery Nor-West day about 9:45AM and headed up the Warfdale Track. Had lunch just over the Warfdale saddle. Frank had started to feel a bit under the weather and decide to stop the night at Black Hill Hut. We arrived at the hut about 4PM with Uncle Roddus feeling it badly, as he hadn't been out tramping for several months and had a pretty heavy pack as well. The snow was quite deep on the descent down into Salmon Creek and made for some hard work but we got down to the Biv by 6PM, set up camp and had a fire in the fire pit going to keep us warm. According to my diary, I cooked myself a horrible dinner and went to bed early, totally exhausted.
 Sunday dawned to a light frost and a fine day and we were packed and away by 9am for the big slog back up to Black hill, a steep 700M climb to get the blood warm on this cold morning. It took us over three hours to get to the hut, which seems a bit slow but snow and sore legs may have slowed some of us down a bit. After lunch as we were leaving the hut(Frank had already started back) I discovered that I had lost part of my tent that was attached to the outside of my pack. I had to shoot back up Black hill, hoping like hell that it wasn't too far down the other side, while the others carried on back to the Warfdale track. Luckily I found the missing tent not far from the top of black hill and so hurried back to the hut and my pack and quite possible took the shortest time I have ever taken to get off Black hill and onto the Warfdale, where i caught the others just before Warfdale saddle. We arrived at the cars about 6pm.

A break on the way.

The snow near the top of the track down to Salmon creek

Uncle Roddus in the snow.

Salmon creek biv

The views from Black Hill

Getting the fire cranked.