Mt Maukuratawhai - 23 September 2012

Uncle Roddus Tramping Diary: Tramp No 124

Mt Maukuratawhai - 23 September 2012

A fairly regular trip on the CTC calendar, this scribe had done this trip as recent as 2010. This time I was hoping for a lot more snow and after the disappointment of lack of views last weekend, I would have been strongly disappointed if I didn't get to see any thing again.

The weather God chose to co-operate this time as 8 keen trampers prepared for the chilly crossing of  the Clarence River on this fine but frosty morning. Everyone, bar this scribe, chose to don river crossing shoes for the fording and then change into their boots before scrambling up the hill(Uncle Roddus is made of harder stuff). It didn't take long before Alan spotted some wilding pines small enough to succumb to his silky saw and so a pattern was set for the lower part of the journey. Things progressed well, with good time being made of our ascent and the first snow being encountered. By the time we got to the last section of hill to be climbed, the snow and the steepness of the last part prompted the donning of  crampons. It was at this point that this inattentive scribe discovered that he had ripped the strapping away from one of the rivets during last weekends adventures and couldn't fasten that strap. Fortunately, ever prepared, a magic spare bootlace appeared from his bottomless day pack and all  was well as we scaled the final leg to the summit where we got to enjoy the magnificent views of the surrounding snow capped mountains.      

Leader Bryce(Who had also been on this mountain before) was keen to try another route down from the one both he and I had done on the previous club trips. Therefore we headed off along the ridge to the west this time and had no problems circling around the tops and back down the Western ridge to the Clarence River.
We estimated we walked about 13km, climbed an accumulated gain of about 1200M and executed about 40 wilding pines.