Continuing our tour around the Craigieburn/Cass/Arthurs Pass area summits, Dave and I decided to tackle this un-named summit beyond Woolshed Hill, just across the river form Mt Horrible and Mt Bruce. Mark ZL3AB did the first activation of this hill in May 2021 so I will try not to duplicate the photos here.
Arriving at the start point of the Hawdon Shelter at 8am on a crisp autumn morning, we headed on up the first stretch which, as Mark pointed out, is a very quick gain in altitude indeed! Apart from the steepness, the thing that stands out is the massive predator trapping program going on, there are box traps every few metres right up to the Woolshed Hill summit and then PVC tunnel rodent/stoat bait stations beyond that right up to the base of our summit. Efficacy is born out by the abundant birdsong all the way up.
Emerging from the bush and getting on up the scrub, tussock and shingle sections you pass a nice wee tarn (pictured in Mark's blog) and then start climbing again to the Woolshed Hill summit. Extensive patches of snow berries (Gaultheria depressa) provided a nice protein and vitamin C boost. This summit is a nice spot and is where most people stop however the SOTA peak is beyond so off we go, losing 100m of the hard earned height in the saddle before gaining it again up to the summit of CB-471. A big bonus on this part of the climb was being checked out by a pair of young Kea. They circled high above us descending slowly until they were only about 15m above us. Fantastic sight.
The views are expansive across the Hawdon to the main divide, South West to the Craigieburn Range - everywhere! Here's the panoramic view.
We knew there was no line of sight to Christchurch for 2m so brought the 44' open wire fed doublet along (the open wire feed and the 2m Slim Jim don't play nicely together). This antenna is a firm favourite; tunes easily and efficiently on all bands 40-10m, is easy to erect and most importantly, produces lots of DX contacts.
 |
| Dave with the doublet on 6m pole. View up the Hawdon river |
It soon proved itself again with Dave running a nice pileup on 40m SSB while I yelled into the ether on 2m... To my great surprise, Stuart ZL3ART called me with a good signal. being in Hillsborough, he is not elevated so a remarkable contact.
By now, Dave had run out of contacts so, after a nice S2S with Phillip ZL1PSH on Moir Hill, I hit the CW end of the band and worked our loyal gang of Chasers. Changing to 20m I was called by Chris F4WBN with a genuine 599 signal. We exchanged reports and completed the contact - 19,500km! Made my day. The higher bands produced plenty of VKs including an S2S with Peter VK3ZPF (author of VK Portalog) and a few JA contacts.
We decided to have lunch on the summit as there was very little breeze and terrific views
 | ||
Nice lunch spot looking up the Hawdon River valley
|
Heading down was uneventful - we ran into two couples heading up to Woolshed Hill and there was quite a crowd of vehicles back at the shelter - the Hawdon Hut was probably going to be fairly full!
Cell/4G coverage at the top was OK on Skinny/Spark and patchy on Vodafone.
Repeaters - None available
Time: 2.75 hrs up and 2.5 down
Permission: None needed - Arthurs Pass National Park (ZLFF-0002)
Access: Park/start at the Hawdon Shelter, across the Mt White Station bridge on SH73
