Mt O'Malley - 14th March 2015

Uncle Roddus Tramping Diary: Tramp No. 155

Mt O'Malley 14th March 2015

CTC Club trip with 10 trampers tackling Mt O'Malley, due south of Mt Aickin above Arthurs Pass Township. A cloudy Saturday morning as we approach Arthurs Pass but the clouds are lifting and the temperature rising as we head off from the Devils Punchbowl Falls car park just prior to 10am. We soon hit the rather steep Aickins track and are quickly above the bushline and enjoying the magnificent views of the Pass and surrounding peaks. The clouds part and we get rather warm as we slog up the 1100 odd meters to point 1844 before heading south to point 1768 with some stops for views and food interrupting our progress. We Summit O'Malley, enjoy the views and the clement weather before dropping down a mediocre scree to the Tarn that feeds graham Stream. Some of us dip their feet in to the clear water and others wade in cautiously before submerging most of their bodies whereas this scribe unhesitatingly wades in and dives under the water before quickly surfacing with a shout of shock. Dives in again just in caser anybody missed it the first time and then exits the frigid  very quickly. After drying off, we set off  in the North West direction across a couple of  bowls and small ridges before hitting the original ridge we came up and the never ending track back down to the cars. According to My GPS log, we traveled 9.9 KM, climbed a total of 1420m and took just under 7 hours.

My Hutt - 21 February 2015

Uncle Roddus Tramping diary: Tramp No. 154

Mt Hutt 21 February 2015

Another CTC club trip to the top of Mt Hutt which is, of  course, behind the famous Mt Hutt ski field on the Mt Hutt range, overlooking the Rakia River.

 I met the group at the corner of Blackford Rd just past 8am on a mild and mostly clear Saturday morning. Just the four of us on this trip as we left the cars at the little river bridge and trudge up the wide rocky stream bed heading for our ascent ridge. Once on the ridge, we followed a deer fence most of the way along the lower ridge before a steep ascent up loose rocks and scree to the upper part of the ridge. It's a long climb with several stops to catch our breath and drink and eat and enjoy the views developing as we climb. We made the summit just past 2PM, it taking us just over 5 hours to climb the 1700m to the summit from the car.

 From the summit it was a fairly easy womble along the tops and along the north east ridge above Little River. We dropped of into the top of the side stream and bounded down a pretty patchy scree before hitting the main stream near a small hydro inlet. It was then a simple slog down a farm track back to the bridge and cars. Time ; 8 hours 36 minutes, distance: 15.9Km, total ascent: 1875m.