By Kieran, 03 October 2008
Being Winter, and Tappy (Tapuae-o-Uenuku for the uneducated) being a reasonably high, impressive, though not very technical mountain, a bunch of us decided to go climb it in the middle weekend of the uni holidays. That bunch consisted of me, Guy, Terra, Annabel, Morgan, Craig S and Alyn. Rumours of more technical mountains such as Alarm and Mitre persuaded the more climbing diehards among us (i.e. Terra) that the expedition was still in fact worthwhile.
Unfortunately the prevailing weather of the winter so far (sh#t, snow and yes another big depression coming in from the Tasman) decided otherwise. Having not booked our ferry tickes yet (Alyn the man was getting us a VIP half price deal through work) we decided to postpone to the following weekend. With the weather maps taking shape with a highly rare and almost endangered phenomenon called an 'an-ti-cy-clone' for a whole 4 days, we planned a Wednesday night to Sunday night mission. As the week progressed, so did the absolutely huge amounts of rain and snow falling on the Kaikoura range where we were heading (about two months worth in a couple of days). The weather still looked like it was going to turn out good, but the farmer who we had to ring to get permission convinced us that it would be darn right silly and probably impossible with huge boulders blocking the Awatere Road (that might get cleared away in time) and absolutely massive amounts of water coming down the Hodder (which almost certainly wouldn't go down in time). Hence we were effectively still trying to make backup plans as we jumped on the ferry Wednesday night.
Nelson Lakes became the new Tappy. There were still some decent mountains like Hopeless and Cupola that could (hopefully) be climbed, and additionally DOC had warned us that on no condition should we go there (because of heavy snow and associated treefall), which seemed like as good a reason as any - two weeks earlier DOC issued an avalanche warning for the Tararuas, suggesting that only 'experienced mountaineers' should venture onto the tops, so we went skiing on Mt Holdsworth...
We arrived in St Arnaud around 2am to a distinct lack of snow (though all the signs of recent heavy snow, probably washed away by the warm rain that had struck the Kaikouras). The next day was perfect, as we wandered round Rotoiti to Lakehead hut, clambering over a huge number of fallen branches and trees on the track that had been overcome by snow loading - still no snow though, luckily. DOC had warned that it took over 5 hours to get to Lakehead in these conditions, but we still managed it in under 3 - though not without me slipping on a log and smashing my jaw into a rock, which made eating difficult for the next little while...
We managed to overcome obstacles such as lying in the sun, having lunch by the river, etc to meander on up the Traverse to the junction with Hopeless Ck. With the sun heading down, plans of heading up to Cupola were scuttled (and had been for some time). The snow was getting more serious here, in that it was deep and soft, but as a plus there weren't quite so many fallen trees as the forest must have been more used to the snow up here. We were all good until we got to a big slip about 2/3rds of the way up the creek to the hut - it got dark on us and we didn't find the track on the other side, which led to about an hour of blundering round in drifts up to our waists, clambering over hidden logs and generally being pretty miserable. Finding the track again led us pretty quickly to the hut and a very welcome dinner!
From here we decided to go out the next day and climb Mt Hopeless. With something like a 1200m gain in altitude required, the 10am start didn't really help. Also the weather, while perfect when we started, got cloudier and claggier as the day went on. Nonetheless, we headed up to sidle a small gorge and get into a basin above - this involved a steep initial climb up rock and scrub, then deep, painfully slow wading through snow and tussock. Walking up the basin, we decided to head up a narrow rib that led towards a high col with the cupola valley. As we walked, we saw a small slide come off the tussock directly opposite this rib - not promising... We started up nonetheless and found the going quite steep on rock and snowgrass. Then we got up to the serious snow, which looked disturbingly similar to the patch that had just slid off down into the canyon opposite us. We got up past this onto a flatter piece of ridge and had lunch, about 1pm. Deciding the snow conditions were absolutely shite and that we didn't have enough time anyway, we decided to bail and ended up just bumsliding down a convenient steep snow filled gut, cause it felt better than downclimbing the way we had come up!
Another (earlier) night in Hopeless Hut did us the world of good and we were up early next morning to head over Sunset Saddle to Lake Angelus. It was another perfect day and progress was much quicker on the hard icy snow with crampons on, the early start meaning we got nearly all the way to saddle in the shade! Craig had been feeling sick again and so ambled off to the hut to start digging (we could just make out a white mound on the other side of the lake), while the rest of us went for a walk up Angelus Peak. This was pretty cool, and not at all technical - the views were fantastic, and we could make out Tappy to the east that we were supposed to have been climbing. Seeing another small bump along the Angelus ridge line, and not knowing which was taller we went for a wander to it - Terra and Annabel called it 'Mt Wonderful' (in protest to Mt Misery, Hopeless, Horrible, etc). They advocated renaming all the mountains in New Zealand to 'happy' names. Hmm, not sure waht the geographical board would say to that...
We came down and followed, slipped and bumslid in Craig's footsteps, taking a lot less time that we thought to get to Lake Angelus, wander across a fair bit of it (a true Jesus moment) and arrive at the hut - or rather the big mound of snow with a roof and shovel sticking out of it. Craig had already made good work by digging a shaft down to the door, so we enlarged this to a stairway. Finding to our shock that there was no coal in the hut, we immediately began prospecting for the coal shed - it was the west coast after all. Unfortunately this was around the east side of the hut where the snow was highest - we had to first guess where the roof of the hut came out to, then dig down to the roof! Luckily we dug just where the coal shed in fact was, and even on the right side where the door was - pure coincedence, I think we would have given up otherwise. Annabel though was really enjoying her digging (which suited everyone else) and we soon had the coal shed door open - outwards opening door unfortunately, but was a half door at least - and started passing out sacks of coal.
We also managed to lie around sunbathing for a while, race down slopes and out across the lake on packliners and generally have a pretty cruisy afternoon. Getting the fire going proved to be challenging, as there was no kindling and burning coal straight off is pretty near impossible! Somehow Craig managed though without ripping up the hut, and we had a very warm night... was still quite snug in the morning in fact. Coal o'clock!
We got up early again to make the most of the hard conditions and cruised out down Robert Ridge in nice weather with a bit of a breeze in about 4 1/2 hours. Geting back to Picton early, we played mini golf, did a GT of Mt Cook and were told off by a 12 year old for drinking beer in the park!
One of the best non-ascents of Tappy I've done.