This is an un-named, private summit which Dave ZL3DRN arranged access to and invited me along.
There is no track, route-finding required. A fairly simple bush-bash for a bit, a grunt up the spur to the ridge and a stroll around the tops, what could possibly go wrong?!
The day dawned cool with a forecast wind change and heat in the afternoon so we were up there at 7:30am to get the steep work done before the heat of the day. Parking the car at Craigieburn Cutting, we walked across the road and headed up through the beech forest - some animal trails evident and eventually we popped out on to a plateau of felled firs, many fire damaged. Picking our way through them took a while, it was pretty tough going as we couldn't find a clear path.
Arriving at the farm track, we picked the right hand side of the large gut and started up (middle of photo above). Steep and cluttered with debris, it was slow going and then we hit the shale/scree and hard clay...
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| Yes, it really is that steep... |
Eventually we arrived at the top of the spur and the first of three summits we would pass on the way to the SOTA peak at Pt 1578m. This one had a beaten up metal trig and a very old wooden one about 20m further on. The original surveyor must have been a bit out with his calculations!
From this point on it was ridge walking, great views and relatively easy. Lots of chamois sign and before too long we were rewarded with seeing a dozen of them just upwind of us. There's been no tourist hunting here for the past couple of years I guess so numbers are high. (As we arrived at the summit we disturbed a group of three does and their kids who then kindly posed so Dave could get a photo)
After passing the named summit, Broken Hill at 1486m, we were on the final climb up to our SOTA peak when an orange object appeared in front of us, a Stihl chainsaw left behind by one of the wilding pine contractors! We marked it's position on the GPS so we could find it on the return leg.
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| Not what you expect to find at 1420m! |
After the hard slog, animal watching and chainsaw pondering, we arrived right on our alert time of 2200z/11am (3 hours 13 elapsed time, 2 hours 35 min moving time) and set about setting up the gear. I had made a poor HF antenna selection (doublet) given that we wanted to use the 2m vertical dipole (Flower Pot), of course the open wire feeders detuned the 2m antenna and our local chasers were stronger on the Handheld 1/4 whip! No harm done and we worked S2S with John ZL3MR when he arrived at Mt Hutt. HF went OK with our loyal ZL and VK Chasers and JA5QJX/0 worked. S2S with Ian ZL3GIG (Trig M), Warren ZL2AJ (Maungatautari) and Simon ZL1THH (ZL1/WK-192 ).
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| Spot the obvious issue... |
The forecast wind change arrived so we pulled down the HF antenna and put the pole back up to confirm my theory about the detuning of 2m. Had lunch and then worked the locals after rollover on 2m - booming in!! A quick pack-up and we set off.
Arriving back at the chainsaw, we decided not to carry it down (due to the steep final descent down the spur) and that we would simply send the owner the waypoint location. Dave couldn't resist starting it (5 pulls) and we made a short video for Chris ZL4RA's benefit, showing how WE deal with wilding pine in CB!
The obligatory stop was made at the Yello Shack in Springfield where the owner now recognises us and off home. A great day with the only downside being the wasp attack. Another summit I probably won't return to but one I am glad we did.
Access details - Private summit, please check with Dave ZL3DRN
Time: 3 1/4 hours to the top (2 hours 35 moving time)
Cell: Vodafone good, Spark/Skinny patchy
Repeaters: not tried but good 2m coverage to Christchurch
