Wednesday 17 May 2023

Red Hill-Mount Lyndon circuit - May 2023

Despite being named as a hill, Red Hill in the Korowai-Torlesse Conservation area is a decent mountain at 1641m. Dave and I have been planning this circuit for a while but needed a suitable weather pattern to turn up. Saturday 6th May looked good so off we went. An early start was in order to make the most of the weather window and get back to Springfield by 4pm for a coffee and debrief!

I left home at 5:30am to pick Dave up in Sheffield at 6:20am and we were at the start point on Lyndon Road ready to go at 7am. No headlamps needed as the spectacularly full moon was really bright. We made good time up the valley and even found some size 15 boot prints left by John ZL3MR the previous weekend!

Heading up Red Hill, spectacular views.

Arriving at the summit 25 minutes earlier than our alerted time, we got everything set up quickly and were on air at 9:42am NZST. As is our standard practice, Dave started on 40m and me on 2m. We soon had our required contacts (including Summit to Summit with John ZL3MR on Cloudy Hill ZL3/CB-474) and had worked all the usual Chasers. The Nor' West wind was quite strong at times so, once our alert time had passed, we packed up quickly and headed off.

The transit around the ridgeline to Mount Lyndon is a really nice walk with tremendous views either side but very exposed to the wind - gloves, hats and windproof layer were the order of the day. Near the end we spotted another tramper catching us up rapidly - "Hope he's not a 70 year old"! Just after passing the scree we would use later to descend, he caught us up, a young German. Relief! 

Looking back from Mt Lyndon to Red Hill (top-centre)

About this time, we saw John (with brother-in-law Robert) had arrived on their second summit ZL3/CB-469 which is adjacent to Mt Lyndon. We hustled on and arrived at Mt Lyndon ZL3/CB-460 35 minutes early, just before noon. Getting straight onto 2m, we worked John and a few others prior to the UTC rollover at noon (0000z). HF followed where Dave worked a nice pile of VK WWFF Hunters and Rick ZL3RIK at Arthurs Pass National Park. Again, we made sure we stayed on-air until after our alert time had passed before packing up about 12:40pm and retracing our track back to our scree for the descent. 

Weather has been quite wet all summer so the scree and underlying soil was nice and soft (very important for clapped out knees). It was a very rapid and enjoyable descent down to our usual lunch point at the bottom of the scree before tackling the waterfall sidle and a bit of scrub bashing down to the valley floor. When coming off Mt Lyndon, we normally turn left at this point and head over the saddle to the Lyndon Lodge but this time we carried on down the valley to join up with our morning track and back to the car.

Looking down the valley from our lunch stop

A great walk and very enjoyable day with 10 SOTA points as a bonus.

Note that much of our route was over Brooksdale Station land - thanks to Stu for his generous permission (see Dave for more info).

Circuit is clockwise, Red Hill on left, Mt Lyndon on right


Stats:

18 km of walking with 1300 m of vertical. 8 hours for whole the trip including two 30 minute activations and a 30 minute lunch stop.

2m/70cm coverage of Canterbury excellent from both summits.


Friday 5 May 2023

Mt Terako ZL3/MB-083

 Also known as Mount Lyford skifield, this is a private summit right on the Marlborough/Canterbury border. It's run as a multi-facet business and very well too, it seems. Payment of the $40 per head access fee is done on line and you get the code to unlock the gate just beyond the Mt Lyford Village.

The road is good but not for the faint-of-heart! Rick was activating Lake Stella and Snowdon Scenic Reserve so we followed him up to make sure his 2WD Mitsi was ok. I had trouble keeping up! Lake Stella is a great location with several lodges and a well appointed amenities hut. The only downside is all the solar inverter hash on 20m... 

Leaving Rick to get set up, we carried on to the skifield base. This part of the road (4WD) has a lot of sharp rocks - be careful if on road or even R/T tyres. After checking a couple of options, we found a track that led to our spur, parked up and headed up. It's not far but it IS steep and is all scree to the top. 

Hey, who's that white headed old fella?! Must be the morning sunlight...

40 minutes and we were on a very pleasant summit with amazing views from Kaikoura and Mt Fyffe right down the Hundalees and Conway to the Port Hills.

An unexpected but very apt can found stashed in the summit cairn!

Setting up the gear we found that 20m was very noisy - almost certainly due to all the solar inverters down below. 2m and 70cm back to Christchurch were both easy with big signals - didn't need the 2m dipole!

6m telescoping pole with EFHW apex and 2m vertical dipole. Port Hills on the horizon

Meanwhile Dave was working up and down the country on 40m including Matt ZL4NVW on an Otago summit. We also worked Warren ZL2JML and Ada ZL2ADA on a Manawatu summit. 

Dave working 40m. EFHW feed-point on walking poles behind him.

I jumped on to the CW end of the bands and worked Japan on 20m, 15m and 10m and plenty of strong USA and Australian stations on 10m.

Weather was nice so we worked the UTC rollover at noon then headed down to have lunch with Rick. The descent down the scree was much quicker (and more fun) than the climb!

Rick was in good form when we got there with a very slick setup. 

Rick's setup - drive-on stand supporting the pole and linked dipole. Big 2m colinear on the car!

We had a very nice lunch and then headed off to get to Culverden for coffee before they closed. A very pleasant day indeed!


Private summit - access pass is required ($40 per person but worth every bit of it). 

https://www.mtlyfordadventurepark.com/


This would make a great base for a SOTA expedition!

https://www.lakestella.co.nz/


Climb: 380m approx 40 minutes up a scree spur

2m: amazing