Lake Morgan Via Crooked River 15th-18th November 2013

Uncle Roddus tramping diary: Tramp No. 139

Lake Morgan Via Crooked River 15th-18th November 2013

So another two months pass before I manage to get out tramping again, mainly due to the weather. This trip was one that had been on my to do list for several years now but again weather conditions prevented it from being achieved, but when I saw it was being run by the CTC on the long weekend of show day I knew I'd have to go.

Lake Morgan and the Crooked River are two areas that don't get a great deal of visitors. With three days up our sleeves, the intention was to spend day one heading to the Top Crooked hut, day two up to Lake Morgan and Morgan Hut and day three along the tops and bush bash back to the cars. Or so we thought.
Thursday Night, 5 of the party converged on the club hut at Arthurs Pass where we were regaled by many a tramping story buy several other parties taking advantage of the holiday weekend and rudely awakening us at 5AM while they left on their particular  journeys. We met the trip leader and an additional team member at the old Jacksons pub, at the agreed time of 9AM, ready to set off on our intrepid adventure. The day was warm with patchy cloud and little wind as we set off up the well maintained track along the Crooked river up to Jacko Flats Hut. Apart from the occasional wind fall the track is well marked and easy to follow although some of the track is washed out near Jacko Flats Hut. We arrived at the six bunk Jacko Flats hut in just over 5 hours and after a couple of out team took a dip in the Crooked River. Although the track up to the Top Crooked hut is now non maintained, it is still in very good condition and caused no problems getting us to that aforementioned hut in another 3 hours. Total time from the Car, 8.5 hours. With only four bunks available, 3 members tented out as the seven of us tried to cook in the cramped small hut. A perusal of the 22 year old hut book revealed very few names that we knew and lots of wish-fill thinking was partaken in regards to the possibility of the morrows weather forecast being wrong.
Saturday dawned as forecasted, low cloud and light rain, we were not going to get to see much of the spectacular beauty of the lake Morgan tops that had drawn us to this place. The track up through the bush is also non maintained but  had been recut in 2009 and was still in excellent condition. It was pretty steep and so got up up high fairly quickly. Unfortunately, it was quite slippery and rocky and one of the team slipped and knocked out one of his front teeth, not much blood to be seen though. Soon after reaching the top of the scrub line we lost sight of the marker poles in the clag and had to start navigating our way via map, compass and GPS. This generally worked well and kept us heading in the right direction of a straight line directly north west to the lake, unfortunately this wasn't quite the route we were suppose to take and late in the day we found ourselves following a stream that some of us thought may lead us to lake Morgan until suspicions set in and a GPS check found us starting to head back down the Crooked River. After course correction and quite a bit of re climbing, we finally crested a saddle and descended  in the direction of what we hoped was the lake. After descending about 150M the lake finally emerged into view from the fog, much to the relief of 7 very wet and tired trampers. Of course the rain stopped after we reached Lake Morgan Hut. A 6 hour day had extended to over 8 hours due to the foggy and wet conditions. The floor of the 6 bunk hut was soon swimming in water as seven sodden blokes got out of their wet cloths and boots and settled in for the evening.This hut book went back 30 years and this time we found some familiar names in it.
Sunday, the rain had cleared and some patches of blue were visible as we set off early so we could get home at a reasonable time. The views were somewhat improved from the previous day but still not at their peak. We set off following the poled route up Mt O' Shannessy, before veering off to the west and over the top of the Morgan river, we had some nice views down the Morgan River valley before the rain and clag set back in, this wasn't in the forecast. After the previous days efforts we were more assiduous with our navigating with frequent stops to check position and direction. This slowed our progress along the tops considerably and it was already into the afternoon by the time we got to the drop off point where we were to bush bash our way down to the cars. Although the weather had cleared a bit and visibility was better, after we entered the bush, things started to go slightly wrong. As tends to happen on bush bashes, one tends to get pushed into certain directions buy the path of least resistance and although the leader tried to keep us in the right direction, with different people leading the group at different times we somehow managed to end up more west of where we should have been but thought we were too far east or something like that and so ended up sidling along the opposite direction away from where we needed to be, at least I think that is what happened. The day was slipping away and we were not making any progress in the downward direction due to the steep drop offs we kept encountering. By about 6am after 10 hours of travel we started to climb back up to see if we could find some way round a gut but the group were becoming very tired and it was time to admit defeat for the day and find somewhere to sleep. Finding that somewhere in the bush on a hill proved difficult and challenging and made for a very uncomfortable nights sleep, if indeed any one got any sleep.
Monday morning as we all should have been rising to start our new week at work, we awoke still stuck on the side of this hill. Thankfully, the weather had improved greatly after some light rain in the night but with little food and water left we were keen to get the hell out.Very fortunately we had cell phone coverage on this hill ans so were able to let those at home know of out fate. A new day sometimes brings clarity to one predicaments and we were soon heading back to where we should have gone down the hill and after a slow and deliberate bash through the bush we finally made the bottom of the hill by early afternoon after managing to find some water and sparingly consuming our food, of which most of us still had some left at the end of the trip. Another trip to go down in the annals of Club legend.

All packed up and ready to go.

The lower gorgy bit of Crooked River.

Some classic West Coast bush.

Strolling up the river bed.

Further up river.

A nice swim hole.

The opproach to Jacko Flats Hut.

Jacko Flats hut.

Uncle Roddus at Top Crooked Hut.

Jump to Sunday morning at Lake Morgan hut

Lake Morgan hut

Uncle Roddus at Lake Morgan hut

The tops.

The Morgan river Valley.

Uchihashi Kazuhisa & Yoshida Tatsuya - Barisshee (Tzadik 2012)

A recent arrival from Tzadik Records.

My first New Japan Release from Tzadik and it fits quite well along side the previous reviewed John Zorn release. A duo of Drums and guitar are gonna have to work pretty hard to keep one interested across a whole album, but these guys, like Zorn and Moore, pull it off wonderfully. The sort of thing that needs concentration to appreciate it fully and I find that easier on the headphones. This album arrived along with several other Tzadik releases and is the one that has most immediately captured my attention and although there are plenty of interesting guitar pyrotechnics going on here it is the frenetic drumming that has really caught my ears, most impressive. Another quality Tzadik release from some seriously talented musos and get a rating of 4/5.

John Zorn & Thurston Moore - "@" (Tzadik/USA 2013)

The John Zorn Discography

And John keeps pumping out the music, much to the delight of us who appreciate most of what he does. This is his 6th release of the year and we are promised another four Zorn related releases over the next two months. I'll never want to wait 5 years between releases that most of these big rock bands make us wait nowadays again.

I was a bit apprehensive about this set, with it being another of his improvised duos, this time with Thurston Moore, and I know that these releases don't have a lot of conventional song structure or melody and I sometimes struggle with that. As you would expect from Thurston, there is plenty of feedback drenched guitar pyrotechnics and experimental jamming combined with plenty of Zorns scronking Sax. The guys have pulled this off surprisingly well and I am finding myself drawn into their improvised soundscapes quite intensely and am far more impressed than I thought I would be. Amongst all the noise and chaos there are also some quite beautiful and almost ambient moments and even a folksy sounding piece from Moore. Not a release for everybody but for the hardcore Zorn 

aficionado this is bloody good. Zorn does it again. 4/5.

Beit: Masada Volume Two (USA 1994) (DIW Japan 1994)

Masada Book One

Volume two of the original Masada book is another high powered set of John Zorn's Klezmer infused take on Ornette Coleman's classic jazz. "Piram" kicks of the set in great fashion with it's chaotic sax and trumpet, although I have heard it better on the live albums. "Hadasha" is the set highlight and is a slow burning and magnificently laid back affair. "Lachish" is another that I prefer the live version and is far more avant-garde and free sounding than the first two and "Rachab" is slower but is one of those European sounding pieces that feels like it never gets going and doesn't flow smoothly, but not too bad a track, there are plenty of interesting things going on. "Peliyot" has one of those excellent Masada Greg Cohen Bass grooves although it's not backed up by equally groovy brass, which is more chaotic. And so it goes, as the rest of the album continues along these lines, a mixed set of quality jazz but somewhat more chaotic sounding than the first volume. Not as many great melodies to really get the attention but another great volume in this series. Rating 3.5./5.

Kirwans Hut (Again) - 14-15th September 2013

Uncle Roddus Tramping Diary:tramp No.138

Kirwans Hut (Again) - 14-15th September 2013

So good to finally get out in the hills again after nearly 5 months of working nearly every weekend through the winter. Thought I'd start off the season with a moderately easy trip up to a favourite hut that I had been intending to visit during the winter while there was snow about and also hoping to entice out some people who had been interested in doing some trips but weren't up to the usual harder trips I normally tackle. After putting off this trip the previous weekend due to weather and the fact that my new hot house had arrived and I wanted to make a start on getting it erected, I managed to entice a couple of friends to accompany me. Alan, a participant from several earlier trips was keen for another visit to kirwans hut and Lesley, whom I was sure this would be a trip that she could handle. Unfortunately her husband had to stay home due to their sheep lambing. 

Lesley and I arrived at Capelston carpark at just past 10:30am as I had indicated to Alan, who was coming from Greymouth. Alan's car was already there but he had started off ahead of us, Me presuming he figured we would catch up with him at some point. The track is a very well formed bench track that had been built to take men and equipment up onto Kirwans hill late in the 19th century to mine quartz. The weather was cool but mostly fine as we set off up the track, noticing the very recent track damage from the very heavy rains that had had earlier in the week. There were no real problems walking the route but DOC will have quite a bit of maintenance to do over the summer. As we climbed the gradual incline up the track we got to experience a couple of short localised light hail storms before finally catching Alan not far over the half way point. After introductions we continued on over the saddle and up into the very mossy silver beach forest of the upper regions of the hills.

We arrived at the hut around 4:00pm after just over 5 hours of tramping with a height gain of 1000M but over a long distance.

The first thing I noticed as the hut came into view was that all the old wooden framed latticed windows has been replaced with new double glazed aluminium sliding windows. I was disappointed with this as the old windows gave the hut much more character but I suppose there must have been a good reason for it. We spent a pleasant night in the warm hut with the fire keeping us warm and the two Ecology Phd's keeping the conversation interesting while the an unexpected but welcome snow fell outside.
Sunday arrived after a quite windy night and a nice covering of snow. Alan, Lesley and myself left the hut at about 7:50am and after leaving our packs at the junction, we headed up onto kirwans hill to enjoy the fabulous views on offer. The trip out was fairly uneventful but the day was pleasent and we made the car in just over 4 hours.

The river still slightly swollen from the heavy rain earlier in the week.

My new car.

Found this old mine shaft, had to have a look.

This washed out creek looked fresh enough to have happened from the rains earlier in the week.

A well formed track.

Ah! Look, there is Uncle Alan.

Apparently they held the Olympics here sometime. 

Approaching the Hut.

And the first thing I notice is the new windows.

A bit of snow overnight.

Heading off on Sunday.

Just popping up to the hilltop.

Brrr!!!

Devo - Freedom Of Choice (USA 1980)

Off The Shelf.

Here's one from the archive. The CD version of the 3rd album I ever owned, bought for me by my mother for Xmas as "Whip It" was the big hit off this disc and I was right into it. I loved this album then and 33 years later, I am still digging it and still can sing along with most of the lyrics. I am quite suprised to the recording quality, this being probably the first time I have dusted this off since I bought the Cyrus about 9 Years ago. This early example of electro pop was firmly rooted in 60 pop but seeded with disco influences to produce a collection of outstanding catchy 3 minute pop songs but with Devo's quirky offbeat style. Side one was always the side that got hammered when I was a teen, it definitely had the best songs,and side two was a little more offbeat and so didn't quite gel with this 14 year old. Listening now, I still prefer side one but can appreciate the technicalities of the songs on side two.  It's so great to dust off something like this and just totally re-connect with the music in the moment and this just fitted so well tonight. If you have never heard this then get it Now. Rating 5/5. 

Sun Ra & His Omniverse Arkestra - Destination Unknown (USA 1992)

The Sun Ra Discography.

Trying to catch up with all the Sun Ra CDs that have arrived the last few months and I am way behind, not hardly even looked at the large selection of Transparency releases that I obtained.
Another live set from the end of Ra's life, this was the second to last album released in his lifetime. The set kicks of with a very accessible and excellent Ra Groove in "Carefree" followed buy Ra soloing on piano with some support from brass and light percussion later in the piece, a somewhat more avant-garde piece although still more accessible than so much of the earlier music. The Arkestra sound tight and also more conventional, especially on the cover songs with Ra taking us back to his earliest influences and well as some of his earlier repertoire. So a good mix and a set that, although unmistakably Sun Ra, is starting to sound more like a contemporary Jazz group. Another good album for Ra Newbys to ease them in. Rating 3.5/5.

Sun Ra - Live At Pit-Inn _ Tokyo, Japan 08.08.198 (Japan 1988)

The Sun Ra Discography.

Yet more Ra, this from very late in his career, this live concert recorded and released via Japan. Sun Ra had mellowed a bit by this stage of his life and so there is quite a lot of more conventional swinging grooves going down here along with some vocal chants and some mild chaos. Overall a nice enough set with some enjoyable Ra grooves and some songs from way back in his catalogue.Rating 3.5/5.

Sun Ra - Monorails & Satellites (USA 1968)

The Sun Ra Discography.

A reasonably rare event in the Sun Ra cannon is a solo piano album, but that is exactly what we have here and although it is not one that I would go all gooey over, I do like to hear him solo. I always enjoy his far out solo's on many of the Archestra recordings although there isn't too much of the really way out stuff here, there is some good stuff to wrap your ears around that is a little less than conventional.
With so much less happening on a solo recording it becomes much easier to stay with the playing even when it gets weird and I find it quite absorbing. A good record and a bit more accessible. Rating 3.5/5.