Hell and Blisters

29-30 December 2010


Jumbo - Powell Loop, Holdsworth Road End, Tararua Forest Park

Party: Mark, Myself

Tuesday and the weather was awful, but predicted to clear for Wednesday and Thursday, so we thought "why not"... And suddenly we had decided that this years summer tramp would be the Jumbo-Powell loop, since Mark was due back on call on the 3rd, and we didnt want to have to go away per se.
Tuesday night we had Mike and Stacey over for dinner while they were both around before dissappearing off to Melbourne for the forseeable future. So after a couple of drinks each and tidying away the dishes, we decided to just go to bed and see how we felt in the morning before we packed.

Wednesday dawned bright and breezy with a few clouds and a continuing good weather forecast online. So we packed up and headed out the door about 10am. Meals had been planned from whatever was in the pantry and lightweight so that we could avoid having to stop at the supermarket. Minimum required gear had been taken. Packs still felt like they weighed a lot.

Arriving at a very busy Holdsworth campsite, and absolutely packed road-end, we were a bit nervous. We were made even more so when we arrived at (the now very different looking) Holdsworth Lodge to discover in the hut book about 14 people indicating they were headed towards Jumbo, possibly for the night. We jotted down our plans anyway and made our way along the Atiwhakatu Valley. At the worst, Mark had a inflatable mat, and I knew there were a few spare mattresses at Jumbo to put on the floor.

Although its not a long walk, the hike along the valley seemed oddly interminable. It just never wanted to fricken end. By the time we got to the hut, I was all for the idea of actually just staying there for the night and not bothering with the rest of the loop. Mark was having none of it, since the weather was meant to be actually nice the next day and it might be the only chance either of us had of doing the crossing with a view.

A short way up the spur and I felt a tearing on both my ankles. Oh dear, that felt like blisters. Even more Oh Dear, my heavy-duty, stick-like-anything strapping tape was on the computer table, where it had been deposited after finishing its duty as tape for the injury Mark did to his hand 3 weeks before our wedding. The only thing for it then was to harden up and keep going, which I did.

With no small amount of grumbling, by the time the heat and general tiredness made it take us three hours to get to Jumbo Hut, half our precious supply of chocolate was already gone (as were half the cornchips), and we had belatedly realised we had bought no rehydrating powder with us to make up for this distinct lack of sugar.

Dinner was an unusual concoction: Rice cooked in Chicken soup mix with carrot and zuchini, served with cheerios. Yes. That is what we had in the pantry, so thats what we made for dinner. It was actually surprisingly edible. We then finished off the pineapple lumps and snagged a piece of carrot, apple and walnut cake off a fellow tramper who had bought half of said cake with her.

The weather being good, at 8.30pm it was still light, but all 14 people in the hut were obviously used to the idea of having dinner and going to bed soon after, so well before dark everyone was asleep. This led to an interesting occurance of about half the hut residents taking turn about to the bathroom at about 1am.

7am came along with sun shining into my eyes through the hut window. I had slept through sunrise and to be honest didnt really care. The weather report that came at 8 via the warden indicated the weather would be "fine", so packs were shouldered and off up the hill we meandered.



The tops are a lot of up, then down, then up then down, then up then up then up then down. Mark wandered off to the summit of Mt Holdsworth, but I just didnt care by that stage, I was starving for lunch at Powell Hut. Our time across the tops had seen some interesting moments - some boggy areas that didnt have clear paths through them, a freezing cold wind above 1400m and eating most of the last of our snack food - but we made it up, across and down to Powell in 3hours40minutes, which is about the time we expected to take.

After a 45-odd minute stop at Powell for lunch, we struck off back down the track towards Mountain House, the road end and home.We were both tired and hungry (completely out of food and sugar by this stage, bar an emergency packet of two minute noodles), and I was very sore, so the trip was slower than usual. We stopped at Mountain House for nearly 25 minutes, just to rest, and snagged a half biscuit off a lovely couple who stopped there for lunch with their dog.

The track down from here was some of the worst hell I have ever experienced. My blisters hurt, my knees were sore (always are, going downhill), I only had one walking pole (so that slowed me down more than having none, as I couldnt use it the way I wanted - as my downhill brakes) and the bottoms of my feet ached. I am ashamed to admit that it took me nearly 2 hours to get down from Mountain House.

Eventually, though, we made it to the road end. We dumped our packs in the shelter and Mark went and moved the car to it so we could both use the toilet there and get changed at the same time without having to shoulder packs again. Our first stop on the way home was the dairy in Carterton for icecreams and powerade. Next stop was immediately to my parents place for dinner. I was so thrilled to not have to cook.

Views? What Views?

15-17 February 2008

Jumbo - Holdsworth loop, Holdsworth Road End, Tararua Forest Park

Party: Jackie (leader), Dave C, Lucille, Emmanuel, Adrian, Sally, Myself

I was SO excited about this trip when I signed up for it - the Jumbo - Holdsworth loop had been on my "to-do" list for years! Nuttily enough, it would also be my second Tararuas tramp in consecutive weekends... I considered pulling out of the trip the week before, but my aim for 2008 was (as always) to do as much tramping as I could, so I did both. And I'm glad I did because a) I met my now-fiance on the first trip (still to be written up) and b) this trip was awesome.

Friday
Friday night was very much "as usual" to start with - Meet at the railway station, clamber into the club bus and head off! We stopped as normal in Carterton for Kebab, and with Steve driving, we all had time for kebab (unlike in Bulls where time is often too short!). Randomly got a text from my mate Nick, indicating him and Peter were out safe from some random tramping mission, so I rang him back and Dave & I had a good catchup with them while sitting on the side of the road eating dinner.
Given we were only headed for the Holdsworth Road End, we were (as usual) there at a cracking good time - about 8.45pm or so. There were only the two parties for the weekend, us and a Fit group going over the three kings. Thunderstorms were expected overnight, so our group opted to wander up to the lodge at the road end and stay there for the night rather than camp at Donnelly Flat. The fit group were aiming to get to Atiwhakatu Hut for the night.

About 45 minutes after we farewelled them, it started pouring with rain. Given they were a fit group, we later found out they were most of the way to the hut already and only had about 20 minutes of walking in the rain to contend with. We were thankful to not be following them!

By the next morning though, we all wished we HAD walked in with them! Turns out that the others who were staying at the lodge with us were weird. Its something that Dave and I still talk about sometimes "you remember those guys at the lodge?" - "I'm off to secure the perimiter!" - we think they were high on something, they had a kid with them who they kept up till all hours and then one of them left at about 3am, taking the car and abandoning the other (although at least that meant we could sleep!).

Saturday
Given we had all had a really bad nights sleep, unsurprisingly everyone was very keen to get up and out of that place early. So we were on track by not long after about 7.30 - very early when you consider we were only planning on getting as far as Jumbo Hut that night rather than all the way across the tops since the Fit group werent due out till after 3pm on Sunday, so it was only about 4 hours to walk!

Beacuse of all that, we were at Jumbo hut by just after Noon in cold, drizzly conditions. We found a surprise when we got there - Geoff was waiting for us. Turns out he hadnt been feeling 100%, and so had opted to stay the day at Jumbo, knowing that we would end up there sooner or later and he could join us rather than slowing down the fit trip guys who had a 12-odd hour day ahead of them planned.

After a leisurely lunch, everyone pulled out their pits and proceeded to sleep away most of the afternoon. Geoff read to us all from his book, and turns out he has a great reading voice for falling asleep to. Cant remember the story though!


Sunday
Up early again on Sunday, partly to see the sunrise, mainly because if we were going to try for the tops, we had at least 6 hours of walking ahead of us and wanted to be at the bus at 3pm.


It was still quite windy and claggy, but we were determined to give it a go. We saw nothing, and I think in some ways that made the day easier for me - if I couldnt see what was coming, it was easier to cope with!


A decision was made to definitely visit the Holdsworth summit trig,

and then we all high-tailed it down to Powell Hut for a late lunch. Of course, as soon as we got back off the tops, the weather started clearing and it started getting quite warm!

My knees didnt hold up that well to the walk down from Powell to Mountain House and I wound up borrowing a pair of walking poles for the rest of the downward leg. I wasnt able to walk again easily for over a week!!

The guys from the fit trip wound up arriving at the road end at about 3.45pm, not bad considering the day they had done, and we all stopped at the White Swan for a quick eat and beer before we ambled off home.

A Monumental Achievement

Yep, I'm finally getting around to writing up older trips. Its about time some of these were written up!
20-23 October 2007

Tararua Forest Park, Holdsworth Road End

Group: Me (leader), Emma, Emily, Rita (assessor / supervisor)

After a hectic Friday spent packing and shifting, before then unpacking, grocery shopping and packing again to go away, I slept really well, and somehow managed to be nicely organised just in time for people to arrive at my new flat on Saturday morning to share a ride to the road end.
The purpose of the tramp was to complete my Gold Young New Zealanders Challenge of the Duke of Edinburghs Award, and therefore we needed to spend 4 days tramping, exploring both the valleys and tops of the range.

My previous attempt at a Gold DoE tramp had been cancelled about 5 days out, as we had planned to complete the round-the-mountain tramp at Ruapehu, but a Lahar had come through and washed away a major bridge, leaving a very acidic river blocking our path and cutting the available track in half, meaning the walk was never going to be long enough.

Rough Plan:
Day One: Holdsworth Road end - Jumbo Hut via Powell Hut
Day Two: Jumbo Hut to Mitre Flats Hut
Day Three: Day walk to Mitre
Day Four: Mitre Flats - Holdsworth Road end

Saturday
Even though it was late October and the weather had been fairly mild for the previous few weeks, there was an almighty storm going on over the tops on Saturday morning, so we decided to head along the valley to Atiwhakatu hut, and then from there to Jumbo Hut for the night, and see where we felt like going on Sunday. It is a very pretty valley, with some cool bridges and the walk in was fairly easy, apart from one massive slip that had obviously re-slipped since the track had last been cut through.

It was quite mild weather wise with just a nice breeze. At Atiwhakatu hut, we met a couple of runners who had tried to get to Jumbo and had had to turn around because the weather was too bad, with lots of wind-driven hail, and a bit of snow as well. We stuck with our decision to head up the hill to Jumbo Hut on the theory that the hut was only just above the bushline, so chances were, we could still make it. Worst case scenario was that we would have to turn around and come back to Atiwhakatu, which although not pleasant, was at least there!

The climb was steep, nasty and slow. And very soon, surrounded by snow / hail / ice. Which was kind of cool, as none of us had tramped in snow before. Everyone was very tired, but got a bit of a second wind when we got to the bushline and started getting pounded by gale-force-wind driven hail! OUCH!!

Later in the evening, the weather settled somewhat, and we got a bit of a view over the rest of the range, which looked rather nasty, and gave us a fair indication that wherever we were going the next day, it definitely involved going back DOWN the hills!


Sunday
Sunday dawned fine but cold, and a lot of the ice from overnight had melted. There was still enough around for a snowball fight though!

We decided to head down the old track that would bring us out closer to Mitre Flats, rather than head back down the Rain gauge track again. It was actually a really lovely piece of track, still well enough formed and marked, and we were at the bottom before we knew it!

Right near the bottom of this track is a really great-looking campsite that I keep meaning to go back to. Its a nice sized clearing, with a fire pit already built and easy access to the river. We stopped here for a while for lunch, and everyone started looking a bit tired, which was worrying.


We continued on up the valley, eventually reaching the bridge thats as far up valley as the track goes. Its probably the longest and slowest bridge we crossed all weekend. There are a couple of fingers and toes, turned-round-backwards moments on the track before here, which were fun.

From here, the track goes UP to the junction with the track to Baldy and across Pinnacle Ridge. At the track junction, we sat down for food and a discussion. Everyone was shattered, and we had at least another 3 hours to go at current pace before we got to Mitre Flats Hut, from where we would have to come all the way back through where we were. There was also a technical bit coming up that had seen many experienced parties get lost for hours at a time, going around in circles. So the decision was made to return to Atiwhakatu Hut for the night, and go from there up one of the spur tracks to Powell Hut for Monday night. This way we were closer to the road end in case the exhaustion got worse in anyone, and we knew what was coming with regards to tracks, distances and times.

It was a fairly straight-forward tramp back to Atiwhakatu, although it took quite a while, and after crossing an unbridged stream between the two Jumbo Hut tracks, I managed to put my hand in a patch of stinging nettle. This meant a brief stop was required to dig out antihistamine cream, and at every small bit of flowing water I could get to, I was dunking my hand to try and cool it, as it felt like I was wearing a very tight balloon glove and my hand was effectively useless. All up rather unpleasant. But at least we got one laugh out of it - when I pulled my hand away from the nettle and realised what I had done, I yelled "Ow, it burns, it burns!" in what was apparently quite a comical tone. I couldn't not laugh at the imitations over the next 36 hours... :)


Monday
A short day distance wise, but it still took us the better part of 6 hours, from Atiwhakatu Hut via Mountain House to Powell Hut because we were all SO sore and tired! The weather clagged in on us as well as we went, and eventually we were walking in quite thick mist. We stopped at Mountain House for a pre-lunch snack, which wound up being soup. And Damn that was the best cup of soup I have ever had.

It at least wasnt windy on us! It cleared a little in the afternoon, so we spent some time exploring the close surrounds of the hut, which neither Emily or Emma had been to before, and then tucked in to some really quite average backcountry cuisine dinners. We had two flavours, and so everyone had some of each. This was great because only about the first 3 or 4 mouthfulls of each actually tasted any good!

Thankfully most of us still had hot chocolates and the like around, as the huts gas heater was broken, and with only four of us in the hut for the night, it did NOT get very warm at all! (Most of us had dinner sitting in our sleeping bags at the table)

Tuesday
Tuesday morning we got a text telling us that a southerly front with wicked winds was due to come through soon. Given at least two party members had spent most of the night awake becaus they thought the wind was going to blow the hut down the hill, we figured anything that was worse than we had now was worth getting out ahead of. So we bolted down breakfast, threw our raincoats on (it was hosing down) and bolted out the door fairly early.

By the time we got to the bottom of the hill, it had dried out and warmed up (a little at least), which was lovely, but would have been nice to have had that weather on our way down! The track down was much the same as always, although this was before the recent re-build of the lower part of the gentle annie, so there were lots of steps that had fallen away. But the road, car and fish n chips were just a short walk away, so we pounded down the hill with our much lighter packs, ending back at the carpark by Noon.