2021-01-30T01:21:25.000Z • Westland District, West Coast, New Zealand / Aotearoa

Tuke - Ivory Lake - Whitcombe

My first proper foray into Westland, years of dreaming about a remote looking spot on a map finally panned out into an 8 day epic.

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To help you calibrate your interpretation of my track times if you're planning this trip: we could all reasonably comfortably make track times on the Dusky track, but at the time weren't very efficient moving in this type of Westland terrain. An experienced party could be much faster, or poorer conditions could make everything much slower, as is the nature of Westland.

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We're off, slowly

We're off, slowly.

Mikonui Roadend - campsite in lower Tuke. ~2.5 hours

It's 2pm before we finally make it to the Mikonui roadend, a slower than ideal start to the day not made easier by the detour to drop a car at the Hokitika roadend.

Brutally heavy packs were already being felt on the Mikonui flats and we took a quick breather at the historic Mikonui homestead. Anticipation was building as I tried to peek through the clag at the rugged peaks above us.

We carried along the flats to Mikonui Flat hut, and across the fairly wobbly feeling bridge over the Tuke. If the river was low, it would probably be faster to get wet feet and cross on the river flats upstream of the bridge. Patrick and I both slipped on a greasy descent to the river, him cutting his hand, and we were already going much slower than we had hoped.

We realized we would be committing to a long night trudge up Dickie Spur, and suspecting this to be deeply unenjoyable, made the call to camp in the lower Tuke before the ascent to Truran Pass.

We decided we should get up on time tomorrow, there was a long day ahead...

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Dickie Spur Hut

A pretty slow ~5.5 hours.

We packed up camp, a bit behind schedule again, and followed permolat through decent forest track to Truran Pass. We stopped near the edge of the slip at the pass for a snack, and then headed up a classic brutally steep bush ascent into the clag on Dickie Spur.

At the track junction to the hut we discussed - do we push on to get to Tuke Hut or bail here and stay a night at Dickie Spur hut? We had a couple of days up our sleeves and a good forecast. I was already pretty worked from a heavy pack. I advocated staying. Jamie disagreed. I hoped democracy would swing my way with Alex and Patrick, and thankfully it did.

We settled into the hut, dried our tents in the afternoon sun, and ate ravenously - the vert and the pack weight had been tough.

We decided tomorrow we'd have to really leave on time. We were travelling too slow too early in the trip - we didn't want to use all our buffer and miss Ivory Lake after all...

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Activity on February 1, 2021

Top Tuke Hut

Rough, slow travel down into the Tuke and to Tuke hut - was about an 8 hour day. Would be much faster if you're a confident boulder hopper. I think it could be done in ~5 hours in good conditions as others suggest, with an experienced, efficient, fit party.

We left on time, Jamie grumbling about the extra 150m vert that democracy had forced him to do by staying at the hut. The steep scrub ascent was roughly assaulting me but I couldn't help but enjoy the stunning morning with low cloud in the Mikonui.

We got our first glimpse of the Tuke from the ridge.

The track on recent topomaps has been updated and now correctly follows the creek draining pt 1296. Old maps incorrectly have it going down the spur. The steep creek descent was slow, but the river was low, and the relentless downhill abruptly stopped at the top of a massive gorge in the Tuke.

The next section of Westland river travel was brutal for me, carrying ~5kg too much fat and the heaviest pack of my life. Hopping over and between massive boulders, bashing through rough scrub detours, for hours and hours until finally we saw the remains of the bridge across the Tuke. Alex waited on a large boulder at the crossing, and I looked the extra thousand meters above him to Mt Beaumont.

We spread out and sat down at Tuke Hut, resting tired legs around a small campfire. There were some oddities to poke around at the hut, notably the NIWA raingauge.

While we were relaxing our bodies, my thoughts were racing and I was tense about the next day - this had been much slower travel than I had expected, much harder, more tiring, and we hadn't even got to the hardest bit yet. Tomorrow we had to face the infamous downclimb near pt2084, and the "5-6 hours" Remotehuts had said was clearly nowhere near our abilities. The weight of being the slowest, in this kind of terrain, was on my mind.

What if we couldn't pass pt2084? What if it took 10 hours? What if we had to camp at altitude and the weather turned?

We couldn't afford to risk running out of daylight if things went sideways. The summer days were long but we'd need all the hours.

The sun went down and we decided - we'd leave at first light.

I went to sleep more nervous than excited, but the excitement was definitely there too. I'd been dreaming about Ivory Lake for 4 years. Tomorrow I could be there

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Activity on February 2, 2021

Ivory Lake Hut

Something like 10-11 hours for us. I do think a fit light party could go much faster (7ish) but 5 hours seems superhuman to me.

Heart racing, I packed my things in torchlight, trying to stay calm and breathing the cool morning air slowly. We cleared out the lovely Tuke Hut. Jamie asked if a rogue pair of sunglasses were anyone's, passing them round, but nobody claimed them. Someone would have regretted leaving that.

We made our way up the Tuke through riverbed and scrub.

Things were already starting to get rough. Thick scrub over rough boulders started to be peppered with Spaniard.

We found a boulder to get out of the relentless Spaniard assault on our shins and the scale of the vert we still had to do came into view. We were in the alpine zone but there was still another vertical kilometer of mountain to scale.

Far above, rugged bluffs and cliffs were shrouded in clag. I sweated and struggled and suffered my way up meter after painful meter of proper off-trail west coast ridge ascent. As hard as I had to push, we still were moving too slowly for my liking. It was going to be a long day.

The suffering had begun in earnest, drenched in sweat, panting, legs burning, using all of the motivation I could muster, enthusiasm spurred on when I got to pause to take in the view.

I keep going up the ridge. Alex accidentally knocks a medium sized rock at me. I'm in crampons on steep scree and choss and have to jump out of the way. I breathe and am glad we had helmets on.

In the snow, Patrick goes, "Jamie, those were my sunglasses at the hut". He improvises with a buff and looks like a right knob to our amusement.

We stopped for lunch before the Exposed Section Near Pt 2084 . Gathered composure before going for a nosey.

Jamie and Alex looked at the downclimb and didn't like it at all. They found a small goat trail leading down the spur a wee way before coming to a line in the bluffs that was sidle-able, and we could get onto snow slops and crampon up. I descended slowly, slowly, slowly. Not a good place to slip, so just don't do that, and it'll all be fine. Not sure it'd be terribly fun if it was icy.

We cruised over the tops, my camera firmly in my bag till we started reaching broad snow slopes. It was getting late in the day, we were tired, but we could see the hut and it slowly, painfully grew closer.

One final brutal notch in the ridge, an absurd little "F you" before picking up more gentle spurs in the evening light en route to the hut.

We enjoyed some hard earned Diesels and Gin/Ice, on the chairs left in the hut in the evening light, basking in our accomplishment - we'd bloody made it!!

We were tired, worn out, and looking forward to a rest day tomorrow. It was more than a treat, it was feeling essential - these had been big days, today was around 10 hours, and I didn't know that I could manage another huge mission tomorrow.

I originally had aspirations of climbing Park Dome on the "rest" day, but I knew I wouldn't be up for it. I looked at the big night sky over the alpine lake and dreamt of spending a sunny day on the glacial carved rocks tomorrow.

Rest Day

I emerged from the hut in full sun at 10am, a goregous day in the middle of nowhere. We had this iconic little spot to ourselves and I planned to really make the most of relaxing, of being in one spot for a whole day.

We poked around the old rain gauges, old steel milk jugs on steel poles. All bent and rusted, but the instruments of science recognizable.

We read the book in the hut which contains a very detailed history of the place, and of the extent of the glacier the existed in the recent past that this hut was installed to study. It was a sobering show of climate change. Here, in remote Westland, where few venture, human impact was so clear in the landscape - glacial recession and migration of plants to new terrain.

I spent a lot of time just looking, soaking it in, appreciating the rugged vistas. I was anxious about tomorrow. But I decided to be anxious later, and enjoy the rest now.

It was remote and beautiful but there is a downside of the place and it is the human aspect. There is no toilet and there aren't many medium-sized rocks near the lake that haven't been overturned. I wouldn't drink the lake water. I would encourage the conscious mountain citizen to bring a poo pot, which I didn't know existed until a year or two later.

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Retreat to the Whitcombe

Over 14 hours for me, but by the end I was pretty worked - fitter souls could be quite a bit faster.

We knew today would be long, agreeing if possible we should make it all the way off Steadman Brow down to Price Flat Hut. We really weren't keen on camping on the tops, in case the weather was going to change, although in hindsight that would have been a more relaxing option.

So we left bloody early again, at least this time recharged from a whole day of healing at Ivory Lake. Panting in cold, still air, stars still visible, walking by headlight - but slowly the headlight becomes less visible, and the stars fade, and it's a glorious morning in Westland.

1 - Ragged Peak 2 - Park Dome, Mt Evans behind

The snow was firm after a re-freeze overnight, and the crampons came out but they were fairly pleasant to use. We made our way back up to Pt2084, less stressfully now we knew we could do it, and cruised over fairly easy ridge to Mt Beaumont.

Just the summit was in clag but it was all smiles up at the high point of the trip.

Refuelled on snacks, we started moving towards The Rotunda, Patrick navigating away with his makeshift sunglasses.

Rock ridge turned to tussock. Generally the ridge was good, except for one narrow tussocky section. It was firm and the footing good but it was very narrow and a long way down for a little bit.

A woman passed us, maybe in her 50s, by herself, moving fast. She was the only person we had seen in 6 days. She was in a good mood - "Yeah I'm off to Ivory Lake, the weather window is too good to not try!". We stood awestruck that someone was doing this by themselves, so confidently, probably faster.

We looked for the way down to the Whitcombe.

The way down wasn't obvious. We picked a gulley between some cairns but the descent was bad. Deep tussock on steep, extremely uneven terrain, small hidden gullies, slippery as hell but lots to grab onto. We all fell many times, catching ourselves in the scrub, rolling our way down the mountain.

I get stuck in a particularly bad patch of alpine scrub. I'm tired and angry and rage against the bush, slowly struggling my way to the edge. Alex calls out "I see a marker" and the day looks up. At this point, I'm out of water, miserable, and 11ish hours into the day.

By the time we hit the valley, I'm a wreck. Hearing the river during the brutal descent while I was so thirsty killed any chance I had at being zen in the suffering hours of the day. I stumble to the water, dazed and sore, knees not working confidently, and I drink heavily. I tell the others I'll meet them at the hut.

I stumble my way to the hut and almost can't find my way past the very tidy historic hut. Not hard to find the track, if you're not 14 hours in and past having a good attitude.

But the hut appeared, and so did relaxation. We knew tomorrow would be a much less heinous day. We decided we'd sleep as long as we needed to. We were all a bit broken.

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To Frew

About 7 hours

This day reminded me I didn't read maps closely enough. In my head this would be a nice easy cruise down by a river. Then I read the DOC time of 7 hours and counted the ~10km of track and realised it must be hard work. But 2-3km of that was dead flat - so what was up?

The slips from Cat Creek to Hopeful Creek were plentiful, hard to get through, loose and active. In one of them I pushed on a large rock I thought was secure - I was wrong, and my walking pole saved me from injury. The closest call on this whole trip, even through all the alpine areas, was this time in the forest, which felt strange.

But eventually we made it to the sanctity of Frew Creek

We enjoyed a peaceful evening at the tidy hut. Thoughts of the outside world started to finally creep in. We had almost made it. Real life was almost back upon us.

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A tired walk out

A Tired Walk Out

6-7 plodding, tired hours.

We left and my legs were proper worked at this point. The rocky uneven riverbeds were starting to become quite uncomfortable and tiring. But I knew today was the last day and that I could manage one more day.

Slow slog down progressively better and better track. Another lovely bridge crossing over a gorge. Another defunct bridge over a side creek. And then we were at Rapid Creek Hut for lunch.

Really on the home stretch now, spirits were running pretty high, and boosted even higher with the arrival of the cableway.

What a marvellous contraption, never let the heath and safety litigators get rid of these beautiful things.

We walked down old mining track, well graded, so well graded - walking fast now even though our legs were tired. Flatter and faster, until the track was 4WD trail, and then gravel road, and then finally - our car was in sight.

We had made it. I didn't really know how to feel, but it was deeply satisfying - four years of dreaming, and hours of hard walking, but we'd made it to Ivory Lake.