Tararua Tramping Club | TrampingReports / 2009-03-11 browse

2009-03-04 | Tramping Reports | 2009-03-18

Tramping Reports Wednesday 2009 Mar 11 to Tuesday 2009 Mar 17

Seven members spent 7 days crossing Whitcombe Pass. They had trouble crossing a swollen Rakaia and one day weather bound. The Whitcombe is all boulders and slips with an occasional length of track. Very challenging.

Wednesday was a day of cold southerlies so the six members who had intended to tube the lower Waiohine gorge decided that tubing was not on.Instead they went up spur across Fern Creek, and along main ridge towards Waiohine until time ran out and they had to make there way back. A short sharp drop of gravelly-looking hail just before lunch. The 6 members and 1 non-member who did the Dobson loop described the day as cool but nice. Three members turned up for the Red Rock ramble but one decided that the south coast was not the place to be an left the others to it.

Moving on to the weekend, three members descended Chamberlain Creek, a tributary of the Ruamahanga river in the northern Tararuas. Saturday night they camped on a shingle hump in the gorge above a 5-6 m waterfall and spent the night wondering how to get out of the trap: unscalable side-walls, retreat back up the gorge cut off and an unpalatable and potentially dangerous abseil into a large pool ahead. Their 'leader' had absconded to participate with four other members in a search for a missing 'despondent' who was found on Friday in a weakened state.

There was a Tongoriro Crossing which had 13 members. 9 reached the top of Ngauruhoe and 2 the top of Tongoriro. Good weather. The leader has remained up there to work on the lodge.

There were 9 members on the Roaring Stag trip. The hut was packed on Saturday night but it didn't stop them enjoying their 2 bottles of wine and meal of fresh vege.

The Cone Peak camping trip had four members. Saturday was cool and Sunday fine.

The cycle trip to the Wairarapa has been postponed to a date yet to be decided.

Three members went from Makahika to check out the old route onto Marquee in the Camelbacks. The route doesn't look to get a lot of use but there are animal trails and the scrub is tall enough to allow you to weave through underneath. They then did an interesting loop into the head of Roaring Ck which flows in the Mangahao.

There was 7 members and 1 non-member on the climb of Mt Climie which ended with devonshire teas at Kaitoke.

On Sunday 5 members and 1 non-member scraped through the gorse on the spur from Taita cemetary. Lots of smoke in there area was a concern initially but it soon became apparent that the fire was on the next spur over and they had a birdseye view of the helicopters working with monsoon buckets.

A total of 70 members and 3 non-members