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| View from the roadside. Spur in the foreground, peak on the left. |
Cloudy Hill is within the Korowai/Torlesse Tussocklands Park however to access it from the State Highway, you need to cross private farmland - please make sure you ask for permission first.
The climb (no track, gps advised) takes you up a spur and ridge to the summit, about 1 1/2 hours with a few rest stops to admire the spectacular views.
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| Antennas set up and ready to go, 2m Slim Jim 1/2 way up pole and HF endfed at the top. Porter Heights skifield in the basin, behind/left. |
We had decided that David would operate 2m upon reaching the summit and I would set up the pole and HF gear and then I'd grab 2m while David started HF. For a while we looked in danger of not activating on 2m - Don ZL3DMC was quickly in both our logs but there was no-one else around... I went to 40m and worked John ZL1BYZ and Jacky ZL1WA on their Manukau Heads summit ZL1/AK-014 , that's three in the log...A txt to Rick ZL3RIK and Geoff ZL3QR soon got things moving on 2m and we also worked John ZL3MR who was still climbing Mt Grey ZL3/CB-673. Robin ZL3REW and Gavin ZL3GAV called in and it was time to go.
We packed up and were walking again by 10am, 30 minutes after we'd budgeted for but OK.
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| Looking East to Christchurch |
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| Looking down to Lake Lyndon and Trig M ZL3/CB-536 behind |
We made good time and arrived at the second summit only a few minutes after the alert time of 11am Local. We used the same setup strategy again and this time activated quickly on 2m FM. Moving to HF produced John and Jacky again and also John ZL3MR, now on his Mt Grey summit - a good haul of S2S points. HF CW was disappointing, only producing one VK, Allan VK3ARH, Rick ZL3RIK and Andre ZL1TM. I called CQ on 30m and 17m with no RBN spots or contacts - very rare. At that point we called it quits, packed up the gear and enjoyed our lunch perched on the edge looking out over at Mt Lyndon.
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| Red Hill ZL3/CB-411 (Left) and Peak Hill ZL3/CB-542 with Lake Coleridge through the valley. |
David has a healthy dislike of returning via the same route so we came out via a couple of excellent scree runs and then bush-bashed our way down the valley. One of the day's highlights was the Chamois that popped up about 20m in front of us, took off up the spur and watched us from the ridge. Magic stuff!
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| Chamois on the ridge making sure we were leaving! |
After bashing/crawling through acres of Matagouri (well it felt like that at the time!) we emerged onto the grazed paddocks and made our way back down to where we'd left the car.
A fantastic adventure full of highlights: 8 points in the bag, great views and company, seeing my first wild Chamois and home in time for family dinner!
Gear - 2m: FT-270R with roll-up Slim Jim 3m up the pole, HF: KX2 with QRPGuys 41' UNUNTenna and 35' counterpoise.
Access: Contact farmer for permission to cross his land into Korowai/Torlesse Tussocklands Park
VHF: good coverage of all CHC repeaters and simplex
Height gain 911 m
Distance 9.5 km
Time: 7:40 total
