Pictures from the Mueller Hut trip

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Mueller Hut, 9-10 October 2010

In spite of semi-bad weather forecasts, five of us had decided to drive to Mt Cook village and do an overnight tramp to Mueller Hut. Several people had backed out due to the expected weather, and in retrospect we probably should have done so as well. Nevertheless, Janine, Philip and myself set off from Christchurch Friday evening with a car full of skis, snow shoes, crampons, ice axes and the mandatory avalanche safety gear, with high expectations for the following two days.

Reaching Mt Cook Village, we met Monique and Brian at the DoC campground, pitched a couple of tents and went straight to bed. Plans were to get up and sign in with DoC at 8.30am, and then head up the track towards Mueller Hut. In spite of our great plans for an early morning, it was 9.40am before we made our first steps towards Sealy Tarns. Five minutes after the start, I realised that I had forgotten my map and avalanche notes and had to run back to the car to get these – a run that proved valuable on Sunday as the weather and snow packed in.

For those that have never been to Sealy Tarns, the track to get there is steep as! I cannot remember seing as many man made steps on a track this short, and with a fairly narrow track, Brian and I found ourselves struggling a bit with our wide and tall packs carrying up skis that just loved catching on to trees, steps and whatever came close. Brian got the idea that navigating our packs  had to be somewhat similar to driving large trucks around narrow streets in the city; a comparison that seemed quite appropriate (however, we were not quite sure if we were closer to an 18 or 24 wheeler).
Weatherwise, we had a bit of rain that turned into a bit of snow as we climbed towards the tarns, but nothing too major to destroy our high spirits. Reaching the tarns, the clouds cleared for a moment, presenting us with some of the views that make the long drive worth every hour on the road. Lunch was eaten, before we climbed up the last bits of tussock and rocks and found ourselves facing massive amounts of snow. Without skis and snow shoes, we would have had to turn back at this point, but being well prepared we geared up and made our first steps onto the ocean of white ahead of us.
With a considerable avalanche danger, focus was on safe travel practices from the first steps. Route selections were discussed before moving from one island of safety to the next, and we always had someone spotting the people moving across potential avalanche paths and start zones. Arguably the avalanche forecast was a bit high to go to Mueller Hut in the first place, but we made good progress with sensible discussions and decisions being made on the way.
After half an hour in the snow, Monique and Brian decided to turn back as the terrain was too far out of comfort zones to be enjoyable. This proved to be a very sensible decision, as the rest of us found ourselves in some very exposed places further up the mountains – in fact we probably all should have turned back at that stage. Before splitting up, we had a quick rearranging of food and gear, only to find that we were carrying a tent too much up the mountains – so much for morning coordination of gear.

Janine, Philip and I decided to move on, and made steady progress in the reasonably firm snow. Just before reaching the ridge taking us the last bit towards the hut, we faced the choice of taking the ordinary route looking somewhat dodgy due to a massive snowpack on a perfectly sloped angle facing just the right way for avalanches this weekend or to make the ridge at lower elevations and being more exposed to winds. Since avalanches were highly undesirable, we made the ridge and was faced with a bit of a scramble up some rocks and deep snow. I found myself in waist deep snow trying to make my way up the ridge, and had it not been for a helping hand a few times I might still have been stuck in the snow.

Safely on the ridge, we faced half an hour of easy travelling before reaching Mueller Hut. As we were carrying a lot of gear, as well as a wine, cake and other luxuiosities for the hut, the joy of seeing the hut in the distance put big smiles on our faces.

Reaching the hut, we faced a bit of digging before the door could be opened. Luckily it was only matter of 30-40cm of wind drifted snow since the last person had been in the hut a few days earlier, and the toilets had been dug out recently as well (still it took Janine 30 minutes to dig it out for the first visit – I cannot imagine what it would have been like to dig out the 1.5m of snow covering the second toilet). We arrived at 6.15pm, after a fairly cruizy day, but still tired and very ready for some hot food! After receiving the latest weather update on the radio at 7pm, we had our diner, wine, cake and tried to make plans for the following day. For three hours straight we had a cooker going to melt snow for water supplies – Mueller Hut may have water tanks, but when they are buried under two meters of snow, it seems quite a lot easier to spend the time melting snow rather than digging out the taps (probably just to find them frosen anyway).

We hit the hay around 10pm, and at midnight the wind started picking up. The vents in the hut were howling for the entire night, making earplugs an absolute necessity, and some of the gusts made the hut move a little as well. Certainly not the perfect weather for our walk out the next day, but the forecast promised a window with less wind. All we had to do was to find this window, and so we woke up at 6am to make sure we did not miss the opportunity of getting back to the village. However, the wind speeds kept to a solid 100km/h until noon, leaving us with little choice but to stay put and start thinking about the possibility that we might get stuck in the hut for a few days. Monday promised clear and calm weather, but since a substantial amount of snow had fallen overnight (and kept falling throughout Sunday), the avalanche danger would be too high to risk travelling any time before Tuesday or possibly even Wednesday. We took turns being concerned about the prospects of being stuck, while the other two was sleeping. Going to the loo was quite an experience as well, requiring a full suit up in warm clothing, a shovel to dig out the door from wind deposited snow in between visits, and it took a full hour for the three of us to have our first visits in the morning! By the way, Mueller Hut as a really cool toilet system where you are supposed to deliver your liquids in one part of the toilet and solids in another part – apparently this saves a lot of money flying out the human waste, and I was surprised to see how well it seems to work.

At 1pm, the wind had slowed down to a more reasonable speed, and we decided to head out and have a look around to see if it was possible to get out. We had decided not to leave any later than 2.30pm to allow sufficient time to get out before dark, and after experiencing a few gusts and realising that the wind really was slowing down, we went back in, had lunch and radioed DoC to tell them we were coming down. 15-20cm of snow had fallen during the night and morning, requiring even greater care in route selection on the way down than what we faced on the way up, but luckily we had had a good view of the terrain the day before and decided to backtrack our steps from the way up.

The ridge was negotiated in good time, with just a few interesting spots where gusty winds and exposed terrain made us very aware of the seriousness of the situation. The biggest decision was to be made as we left the ridgeline and moved onto the western aspect of the mountains. Here we expected to find moderate amounts of wind deposited snow, and we had to decide whether it was safe to continue or we had to turn back and stay in the hut for another night or two. I made the first move, with Janine and Philip watching out for avalanches. I called them down, and after a quick assessment and discussion, we decided to move on down. We kept a safe distance in case of snowslides, but never moving out of hearing distance. With Janine and Philip on snowshoes, it took a bit of time coming down, but I enjoyed every bit of it, skiing the best powder of the season and cutting first tracks no matter where I went. In fact, the snow was so good that I managed to pull of some very decent skiing in spite of my 15-20kg pack, and this alone made the whole trip worthwile for me. The other two was not quite sharing my love for the descent, but at least they realised how much they need to get touring skis if they are to go on similar trips in the future.

Reaching Sealy Tarns, we had a quick mueslibar break, while taking off skis and snow shoes and getting ready to walk down the track to Mt Cook Village. It had started snowing, and the wind picked up again. I still find it hard to believe that we hit the tiny window to get out safely – if we had started out just half an hour later we might have had to turn back. Avalanche dangers became very present as we came down the last bits of snow, with cracking and slabs coming loose. Luckily, this was on low angle terrain and with good runout zones not too far further down, but it certainly made the risk very real.

The track down from Sealy Tarns was negotiated in reasonable time, with the biggest problems being navigating a pack with 185cm skis attached to the sides. They had a nasty tendency to catch high steps down, as well as any trees or bushes besides the track. Ski poles proved to be a great aid, especially walking down in skiing boots (which was less of an issue than one might think). We reached the car at 6.30pm, stoked to have made it out safely and in reasonable time. After a quick change of clothes and signing out with DoC, we made the long drive back to Christchurch, reaching the city just before midnight. How I managed to sit a test Monday morning is still somewhat mysterious to me, but the trip was certainly well worth it all.

In retrospect, a few key points remain as a very valuable lesson learned from the trip. This being the most serious winter trip for all of us, there is no doubt that we got in just a little too deep. However, through good discussions on the go and constant evaluation of the dangers present, we managed the terrain and got out not only alive, but in good spirits and without pushing our limits. I keep wondering how much I should have foreseen based on the weather and avalanche forecast, since the issues of rising avalanche dangers were very obvious to me as we were sitting in the hut, waiting for the wind to slow down and allow us to get out. Back home, I found the avalanche forecast for Monday begin raised to high, which would have left us no choice but to stay put until Tuesday had we still been in the hut. We would have had enough food to survive, but two or three extra days would not have been particularly pleasant.
Furthermore, the trip was a reminder that being in the snow can be a very serious business. As the missions into the mountains become more interesting, so does the avalanche danger. I have never felt more exposed than on this particular trip, and I am extremely happy that we were a small group of people knowing each other in advance. Small mistakes could have had major consequences, and although it was a truly amazing trip, it is certainly not recommendable for everyone in snowy conditions.

Ball Pass Crossing, 24-25/1

Sunday the 24^th, we got up to a rainy morning at a campsite by the side of Lake Pukaki near Mt. Cook Village, but since we only had 3-4 hours of tramping planned that day, we decided to stay dry at the campsite for another hour before driving up to the parking lot near the Tasman Glacier where we started the tramp. Stalling for an hour did the trick – the rain stopped, and we saw nothing but dry weather for the rest of the crossing.

Day one was more or less flat, and took us to Ball Shelter (altitude 950m), a flat area with a longdrop and collected rainwater for drinking. The tour offered views of Tasman Glacier and the lake beneath it, as well as The South Alps all around us. We arrived at Ball Shelter between 3 and 4PM, pitched our tents and relaxed in the sun. Diner was prepared at 6PM, and the evening ended up being quite chilly as the wind had picked up during the afternoon.

Prior to departure, we had been split into different groups doing different tramps on day two of the tour. I made my way to the longest and most difficult tramp, crossing Ball Pass, and looked forward to an expected 12 hour tramp on day two including snow crossings with crampons and ice axes. Only four students (myself included) asked for and were allowed on the crossing, the rest was looking forward to a shorter day two with a few hours tramping without backpacks before taking down our camp and carrying everything back out the same way as on day one. Unfortunately they had a disappointing day for several reasons, which caused a few clashes when we all met up in the evening on day two – some related to the specific tramps, and some “just” related to us being 22 travelling together for three weeks.

The six of us doing Ball Pass Crossing (4 students, 1 teacher and 1 helper) woke up at 4.30AM on day two, had breakfast and got everything packed. During the night, Keas had been checking out our camp, sliding off our tents and knocking on our pots through the tent fabric. We left everything unnecessary behind, thanking the rest of the team for carrying this out later on the day. At 5.30AM we started climbing up the steep slopes towards Caroline Hut (altitude 1830m) and further on to Ball Pass (altitude 2130m). The morning was very cloudy, but when the sun rose above the mountains around 7AM we had made our way up over the clouds, and the most magnificent morning light coloured the snow-clad mountains in different shades of orange. The Tasman Valley was still covered in clouds, and we hoped that the others would not be put off by this as they were getting up around the same time as we were standing above the clouds enjoying the view.

All day long, the path was much harder to find than the other tracks we had been walking previously on the tour around NZ, and the terrain proved to be quite difficult. Not only did we meet a fair bit of snow, requiring ice axes to cross safely (the crampons might not have been essential, but they certainly made it a whole lot easier), the path went through all different sorts of typical alpine terrain including loose rocks, big boulders from rockslides, and sometimes we had to do a bit of scrambling to make our way forward. We did not manage to keep track of the path at all times, and this might of course have made our path a bit more difficult than if we had stayed on the proper path, but we made it to Ball Pass where we arrived at 11.30AM after climbing a total of 1180 meters. On the other side of the pass awaited our descend down to and past Hooker Glacier. Lunch was an ongoing project this day, we had a sandwich every 3 hours or so not to get too full and tired after a long break in the middle of the day. This turned out to be a great solution, none of us got too hungry or too full at any point, and we kept our breaks to a maximum of 15 minutes.

After a long morning climbing up to Ball Pass, it was a relief to get to the high point of the day, and though the descend was longer than when we did the Travers Saddle Crossing in Nelson Lakes, this one turned out to be easier on the knees due to loose sand and rocks that gave in to our steps. All day long we had to watch out for rock falls, caused by our own steps, but we managed to get through the entire day without any injuries and just one minor incident where I had to do a bit of tap dancing to avoid a sliding rock.

The descend to The Playing Fields and further down to the East Hooker Valley was a bit tricky with respect to finding the path, but when we finally got down to the glacier after approx. 10 hours of tramping, we still faced a couple of hours making our way out of the valley to the campsite where the others were waiting. This last bit was quite flat, and it was a huge relief to just be able to walk at a fast pace, not having to consider every single step to avoid slipping on the steep slopes of the mountains.

Around 6PM we met the others at the DOC campsite in Mt. Cook Village after 12½ fantastic hours offering spectacular sceneries as well as a physically demanding trip where you had to pay attention to every single step in order to stay upright. We came down to a well deserved beer, diner, and a weird discussion on whether it would be safe for us to drive to Queenstown that night or not. We ended up staying in Mt. Cook Village overnight; I went to bed at 9PM and the next morning we drove to Queenstown at 6.45AM to be ready for rafting at the Shotover River at 1PM.