Uncle Roddus Tramping diary: Tramp No.93
Adventure Biv/Yeats Hut 6-7th Nov 2010.
Adventure Biv/Yeats Hut 6-7th Nov 2010.
Picked up my companion for this trip from Springfield at about 9am Saturday morning and headed over to Hokitika for our weekends adventure. The original plan was to revisit Kirwans hut near Reefton but as no one else signed on for that, Honora suggested that if there was somewhere more challenging or different I wanted to go she was keen. Adventure Biv is the first hut listed on the Remote Huts Westland website and I had been thinking about organising a trip there for quite a while. Honora agreed and said it was one she also had wanted to visit. She had done some trips in the area and knew the terrain so it was decided. The difficulty of the West coast is getting the weather good and our luck looked like it was in as the forecast was for bright sunny days on both Saturday and Sunday. Honora suggested after, some discussion, that on Sunday we head up from Adventure Biv along the tops and head back down to Yeats hut and then out from there, I thought this was a good idea and we then get to visit two huts on my new mission to visit all the huts on the Remote Huts site.
So our adventure starts just on Midday as we leave the car at the end of Middlebranch Road and begin the journey up the Toaroha river towards the famous Cedar Flats huts and hot pools. Surprisingly, there were no DOC signs indicating the start of the track up to Cedar Flats, which I thought was strange as it is a popular tramping destination for trampers who like to soak in hot pools at the end of their walks. There was an orange marker though, so we headed off in the direction it indicated to us. The track up to Cedar Flats is well used and well maintained and a team were working there on Saturday building new boardwalks on the lower parts of the track. Some of the travel involved a long stretch of rock hopping lower down, although there is a high flood track if needed. After a pleasant amble of around 3&1/2 hours we cross the long swing bridge to check out the 2 huts at Cedar Flats take in the views of where we are about to climb and have some afternoon tea.
We head up river from Cedar Flats a while until we get to cross another shorter swing bridge spanning a deep gorge back across the Toaroha River. We soon reach the signposted turnoff to Adventure Biv and start the climb up the ridge through the bush. The track was easy to follow and well marked. It climbed fairly steeply before cresting point 808 and dropping down a good 50 or 60 meters before the final climb up to Adventure Biv. We made the climb to the Biv in just over 2 hours and just under 6 & 1.2 hours from the road. The Biv itself is one of those low small affairs put there by the old Forestry Service back in 1984 and it only had one bed with some sacking and foam mats for comfort. A pleasant evening was had sitting outside, me learning to use my new MSR liquid fuel stove, cooking and eating dinner with spongy puddings for desert and hitting the sack just before it got dark.
Sunday dawned clear and fine as promised and a reasonably early start of 8am saw us leaving the Biv to head up hill to Zit Saddle. The area above the biv is very scrubby and tussocky in patches, the tussock being quite large. The track is less maintained here and took more concentration to stay on it. Also it got very steep in places and we had to carefully use the flora to help pull us up as we climbed. In my less fit condition after the winter I certainly found it hard going and as it was so steep, my walking poles weren't of much use. We made Zit saddle just after 10am, had a refuelling stop and admired the views before the clouds started to come in ad obscure our visibility somewhat. Heading south along the ridge towards point 1694, there were areas of rocky outcrops to negotiate and plenty of snow patches along the eastern side. As the clag closed in and visibility lessened we had to stay focused on where we where and where we needed to head off to get down to Yates ridge. We also ended up cramponning across several snow fields. When we got down to somewhere between 1400 & 1500 on Yeats ridge, with visibility around us pretty low, we started to have doubts as to exactly where we were. We spent a good time consulting our maps and compasses and could see a bit into the valley beside us, but we still weren't exactly convinced. We decided to eat and sat down on the fog encrusted ridge in not too unpleasant conditions and as we were eating the fog lifted enough to give us a misty view of Crystal Biv and the associated ridge and after reconsulting our maps we knew we were exactly where we should be.
Not too much further down we cleared the cloud and got a good view of Yeats hut. The rest of the trip down was me slipping and sliding as the ground was quite damp under the vegetation and also trying to find our way down as the track has very little maintenance apart from a few poles and some cutting. It certainly wasn't easy going and still took us a while to finally get to the hut. We arrived just before 2:30pm, which meant we had taken 6&1/2 hours. Wrote a quick note in the hut book took photos and off we went as were behind schedule and had a long way to go. We traversed the ridge along behind Yeats hut and got to the point where the track enters the bush and heads sharply down hill just after 3pm. I was looking forward to a good track perhaps like the one coming up Adventure ridge, but alas this this track is only slightly maintained and the top part of it, although easy to follow, is very steep, looks like it follows a waterway and is very overgrown with flax. further down there is plenty of windfall and it was steep most of the way down. we lost it a couple of times by big windfalls but in the end the track got us to where we wanted to be. Certainly not easy going, but a real taste of West Coast tramping. Got back to Cedar Flats just after 5pm refuelled and set off for the last leg of out journey just after 5:30pm. As fast as my tired and aching would carry me we made good time on this last leg and got back to the car in 2&1/2 hours. After 12 hours of some difficult travel we arrived back safe, exhausted, sore and bruised, challenged and exhilarated. An excellent trip, wonderful scenery, great company and a lasting memory and I look forward to taking on this area again and visiting some of the many other huts in this area.
So our adventure starts just on Midday as we leave the car at the end of Middlebranch Road and begin the journey up the Toaroha river towards the famous Cedar Flats huts and hot pools. Surprisingly, there were no DOC signs indicating the start of the track up to Cedar Flats, which I thought was strange as it is a popular tramping destination for trampers who like to soak in hot pools at the end of their walks. There was an orange marker though, so we headed off in the direction it indicated to us. The track up to Cedar Flats is well used and well maintained and a team were working there on Saturday building new boardwalks on the lower parts of the track. Some of the travel involved a long stretch of rock hopping lower down, although there is a high flood track if needed. After a pleasant amble of around 3&1/2 hours we cross the long swing bridge to check out the 2 huts at Cedar Flats take in the views of where we are about to climb and have some afternoon tea.
We head up river from Cedar Flats a while until we get to cross another shorter swing bridge spanning a deep gorge back across the Toaroha River. We soon reach the signposted turnoff to Adventure Biv and start the climb up the ridge through the bush. The track was easy to follow and well marked. It climbed fairly steeply before cresting point 808 and dropping down a good 50 or 60 meters before the final climb up to Adventure Biv. We made the climb to the Biv in just over 2 hours and just under 6 & 1.2 hours from the road. The Biv itself is one of those low small affairs put there by the old Forestry Service back in 1984 and it only had one bed with some sacking and foam mats for comfort. A pleasant evening was had sitting outside, me learning to use my new MSR liquid fuel stove, cooking and eating dinner with spongy puddings for desert and hitting the sack just before it got dark.
Sunday dawned clear and fine as promised and a reasonably early start of 8am saw us leaving the Biv to head up hill to Zit Saddle. The area above the biv is very scrubby and tussocky in patches, the tussock being quite large. The track is less maintained here and took more concentration to stay on it. Also it got very steep in places and we had to carefully use the flora to help pull us up as we climbed. In my less fit condition after the winter I certainly found it hard going and as it was so steep, my walking poles weren't of much use. We made Zit saddle just after 10am, had a refuelling stop and admired the views before the clouds started to come in ad obscure our visibility somewhat. Heading south along the ridge towards point 1694, there were areas of rocky outcrops to negotiate and plenty of snow patches along the eastern side. As the clag closed in and visibility lessened we had to stay focused on where we where and where we needed to head off to get down to Yates ridge. We also ended up cramponning across several snow fields. When we got down to somewhere between 1400 & 1500 on Yeats ridge, with visibility around us pretty low, we started to have doubts as to exactly where we were. We spent a good time consulting our maps and compasses and could see a bit into the valley beside us, but we still weren't exactly convinced. We decided to eat and sat down on the fog encrusted ridge in not too unpleasant conditions and as we were eating the fog lifted enough to give us a misty view of Crystal Biv and the associated ridge and after reconsulting our maps we knew we were exactly where we should be.
Not too much further down we cleared the cloud and got a good view of Yeats hut. The rest of the trip down was me slipping and sliding as the ground was quite damp under the vegetation and also trying to find our way down as the track has very little maintenance apart from a few poles and some cutting. It certainly wasn't easy going and still took us a while to finally get to the hut. We arrived just before 2:30pm, which meant we had taken 6&1/2 hours. Wrote a quick note in the hut book took photos and off we went as were behind schedule and had a long way to go. We traversed the ridge along behind Yeats hut and got to the point where the track enters the bush and heads sharply down hill just after 3pm. I was looking forward to a good track perhaps like the one coming up Adventure ridge, but alas this this track is only slightly maintained and the top part of it, although easy to follow, is very steep, looks like it follows a waterway and is very overgrown with flax. further down there is plenty of windfall and it was steep most of the way down. we lost it a couple of times by big windfalls but in the end the track got us to where we wanted to be. Certainly not easy going, but a real taste of West Coast tramping. Got back to Cedar Flats just after 5pm refuelled and set off for the last leg of out journey just after 5:30pm. As fast as my tired and aching would carry me we made good time on this last leg and got back to the car in 2&1/2 hours. After 12 hours of some difficult travel we arrived back safe, exhausted, sore and bruised, challenged and exhilarated. An excellent trip, wonderful scenery, great company and a lasting memory and I look forward to taking on this area again and visiting some of the many other huts in this area.
The Track into Cedar Flats
Look upstream the Toaroha River
Honora on the swing bridge before Cedar Flats huts.
The old Cedar Flats Hut
The Newer Cedar Flats hut
The lovely Gorge on the Toaroha above Cedar Flats
Looking up to the tops on Adventure Ridge
Approaching Adventure Biv
Great views and great weather
Looking at where we are going to climb tomorrow
Me at Adventure Biv
The Interior
Looking back where we come from
Heading along to Zit Saddle
Heading away from Zit saddle
Looking down the Kokatahi River
Heading towards point 1694 before the clouds came in
My winter tramping experience for the year
Yeats Hut
Inside Yeats hut
Me at Yeats Hut
looking towards Mullins Basin from Yeats Ridge
An Idea of the track down off Yeats Ridge
And this also on the Yates ridge track.
Great seeing those photos, Roddus.
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