Dave and I chose CB-617, an un-named summit behind Mt Thomas in the North Canterbury foothills. Juggling the need to be on summit at dawn (2004z) and have a chance to see the Matariki cluster pre-dawn was tricky so we focused on the arrival time and hoped for the best.
Dave arrived at my place at 5am to a -2 deg C frost and when we arrived at the start point, Wooded Gully campsite at 5.40am, it was +11 degrees!
Headlamps on and we set off, my first night hike. I loved it. The headlamp made it easy to follow the track and the beech forest is very quiet at night. A downside of the balmy temperature was that there was a cloud bank out to the East so no chance to see the cluster low on the horizon.
We made good time to the summit, temperature steadily dropping as we climbed. We arrived at 7.30am, 3.6 deg C and patchy snow around. Photos taken in my flash new T shirt (thanks Francie) and we set up the gear in a nicely sheltered spot out of the breeze.
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| Not my best pose but hey, I just climbed a mountain! |
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| The bunker - nice and sheltered |
Antenna de jour was an 116' doublet. Theory being that we would need 80m at this hour of the
morning. It takes up a lot of space - one of the reasons we chose this summit! Dave started on 80m and quickly worked a few stations with very good signals while I worked the locals on 2m FM. When I moved to 80m CW I was surprised to hear VK1ACE call me, we didn't complete but he was a good signal. 40m was productive, with 5 summit to summit contacts logged. Australian chasers were up early and had good signals on 40 and 20m. Chris F4WBN was booming in, always nice to work him.
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| Doublet with open wire feeder on right - long feeder means you can pick a nice operating spot. |
Around 9am it got very cold having sat still for an hour at 3 degrees so we packed up and headed along the ridge for the Mt Thomas summit. We met a hunter heading up who was surprised to find someone had beat him in to the carpark! After a brief chat and a pat for his dog, we were away again and climbed up to the summit. Views are great from here of all the Canterbury plains and it's well worth the detour. We headed down the summit track and Dave jinxed it. He was telling me how this track isn't used much as it is steep, boring (pine forest) and direct. With that the first of many (about 15) walkers came past heading uphill! We stopped for early lunch at a little clearing and worked John ZL3MR on his second summit. Dave then gave Paul ZL3PA another contact towards his 50 and we carried on down, arriving back at the carpark just after noon. A really pleasant circuit and one I'll do again.
Access: Wooded Gully Campsite, Mt Thomas Forest
Permission: not required but check the DOC website as the Ridge Track is sometimes closed for logging ops.
Time: 1:50 to CB-617, 1 hour along the tops to Mt Thomas and 1 hour descent.
VHF: easy to qualify this one on 2m simplex and all Canterbury repeaters accessible.
Thanks to all who took part in this inaugural Matariki event, hopefully it's the first of many.
