Amber Col - 3-4th April 2004

Uncle Roddus Tramping dairy: Tramp No.43

Amber Col - 3-4th April 2004

Another trip in this very active period with the CTC, this time an overnight one. The intention, from memory, was to head up the Hawdon river, Walker pass and onto Amber Col, camping high(I,m not sure where) and then along the tops on Sunday, dropping down Sudden Valley and back to the cars.

 We did as planned, leaving the car at Hawdon shelter, five of us getting to Hawdon hut in about 2 hours for morning tea around 11am. We got to Walker pass about 1:00PM, by which time the wind had picked up and the temperature had dropped as well as cloud build up. We lunched just below the Pass. From Walker pass we followed the East branch of the Otehake river up to Amber Col. With the weather deteriorating, as forecast and rain and possible snow expected overnight, our leader decided to abandon the idea of a high camp and head down and camp near the Edwards river. 

 The weather did as predicted and it was still raining when we awoke the next day with fresh snow on the tops. We abandoned any ideas of heading back over the tops into sudden valley and instead just walked out down the Edwards, thus facilitating our driver in hitching back to the car at Hawdon shelter.

It seems I wasn't too keen on taking too many photos at this time, possibly because I didn't have a carry bag I could clip to my pack belt like I do now and so I had to get the camera out of the pack every time I wanted to shoot a photo. I only have 15 photos from this trip(normally, these days, I would take at least a couple of hundred) and these are the best of them.