Wet concrete and a good fall

5 - 6 June 2010

Totara Flats Hut, Waiohine Gorge Road End, Tararua Forest Park

Party: Myself, Mark

Queens Birthday long weekend, 6 weeks of unemployment for me, and a variable, but not BAD weather forecast saw Mark and I getting up at a reasonable time on Saturday to head for the hills for a night, just to get away.

Our original plan had been to complete the Jumbo - Holdsworth circuit, but the weather report indicated that the best way to do this would have been to complete the tops on Saturday and be on our way out on Sunday, which would have been do-able, but we didnt feel like the early start that would require!Instead we decided on Totara Flats Hut, somewhere neither of us had been before, and therefore another hut to cross off our list - sweet - and a reasonably flat tramp to a reasonably large hut, so hopefully not too hard (since I havent tramped since Easter), and fingers crossed not a full hut!

Reading up the information we could find, all indications were it would take about 3.5 hours, so we allowed for over 4 hours of afternoon daylight and left the road end at about 12.30. An hour later, we rounded a corner to a spot that looked like it would be great for lunch to find it already occupied - by Megan S from club, and a friend of hers! Small world!

A quick lunch was had and we continued on, reaching Clem Creek after only a short stint. It wasnt too bad to cross, but getting down to it and back up again was a challenge, as access was very steep. In very bad weather, it would be impassable, and so we had a very brief discussion here about returning to the car, given the weather report. We decided to press on and hope that the weather report was right, and only light rain came through overnight and on Sunday morning.
There wasnt much memorable along the next part of the track, until the point where we first came down to nearly river level. This involved a short clamber down a slightly slippery tree root "ladder", and after one good step I lost my footing and started falling headfirst down the bank! I had enough time to realise that this was NOT a good place to do this (just on 3 hours from the road end, and we believed about 45 minutes from the hut), before I landed somehow feet first, jarring my neck a little and rattling my teeth together, Marks hand wrapped tightly around my upper arm, where a long graze and large bruise was already showing. (Photo taken later that evening at the hut, where the bruising is starting to become evident under the graze. This later turned black, then deep green for a couple of days, before fading within 10)
Thank god I landed feet first and not head first... Sunday night at home I kept having nightmares of the fall, and the aftermath if I had landed badly - pitching tent on a narrow bit of track, having to send the next people through back to the road for help (we knew they were there), a helicopter ride back to town, ringing my parents with the news...

At this point we could see river flats ahead, and instead of pulling out the map, we assumed that these were the last flats before the hut, meaning the hut should be about 2km along the valley - perhaps 45 minutes. So I put on a thermal top to limit shock and we kept going. My first aid kit was somewhere in my pack, and when a moments rumaging didnt dislodge it, I gave up on finding a bandage and pain killers in preference for moving on towards the hut.

A short way further on was a decision point: The high-river track or the river-side track? The river was low, so we took the river-side option and clambered down the rocks to it. Ambling along the riverbed, we suddenly found ourselves starting to sink into concrete-like mud with every step! Looking away from the river, we saw the obvious scars of a fresh slip (Megan said later it must have been that week because DoC didnt know about it). We were about halfway between the river and the bank, and so wound up with no option but to start running from large rock to large rock across the face of the slip until we got to the other side and out of the quick-sand cement!

Going in to Totara Flats from here there is a LARGE orange triangle that marks what is obviously a track people have created by trying to get back to the track from this marker, as at that point it is not at all obvious that there is another route back to the track. There is, however, a much easier track to get back on to the main track about 20m or so beyond this marker triangle. Trust me on that one.

At this point we thought "yay, we MUST be nearly there". Not quite. We were back in to bush and climbing away from the river again... So once at the top, the map came back out and we realised that only now were we at the point we thought we had been at over an hour earlier. Getting across the bottom of the slip had taken quite a while. It was well on to 4.15 and we were down to less than an hour of daylight left. By all accounts, we should have already been at the hut by now, and the map indicated another 2km to go!

The stomp down the valley across the plain was slow and tedious going, and by the time we reached the bushes near the hut, it was dark enough that we pulled out my head torch to light the way. Arriving at the hut in the just-darkness at 5.15 we were exhausted, having taken over an hour longer than we had anticipated (4hr 45 min as opposed to 3hr 30min). AND we were worried, as we knew there were two other parties a good distance behind us in the dark.


At 6.30, the group of 4 girls who had left the road end at the same time as us arrived, reporting that they had last seen Megan and Ruth at the river more than an hour previous, as the light was fading. Megan and Ruth finally stumbled into the hut at 7.30pm, having been walking in full darkness for 2 hours, including some interestingly steep scrambling, and having had difficulties finding their way off the river in the gloaming.

Dinner was a yummy rice risotto with canned chicken and carrot, followed by steamed pudding for dessert! Then after re-dressing my graze, and taking a couple of painkillers it was off to bed fairly early. Every time I rolled over I woke up because that arm was dead, and I had to consider my sleeping position carefully to ensure minimal pain...

At some stage overnight it started raining. Just a steady drizzle, rather than an intense downpour. So we were out the door not long after 8.30am, aiming to get back past Clem Creek before the rain got any heavier and caused any issues with crossing. Thankfully it did. Getting across the slip was easier on the way back too, as we stayed closer to the river, where the mud was less sticky. Another group went the long way around the top of the slip and found it only just passable.
Clem Creek was up, but only by about 5cm or so, and crossing it was made more fun by having 10 of the 12 of us coming out that way all arrive there within a few minutes of each other, and therefore crossing together.

The road end was reached in just on 4 hours, with only about 5 minutes of stops (apart from the 10 minutes it took to get everyone across the creek), with the party of 4 leaving the carpark as we arrived, and the four girls arriving at the shelter as we were re-packing to leave.

Pizza and Chips at the White Swan for lunch was the next order of business, and this attended to, it was time to go home!

Helicopter-tastic, Episode Two

Saturday 21 June 2008


Tongariro Crossing, Mangatepopo Road End, Tongariro National Park.

Team: Rene, Paul, Myself

As Mark was away in Europe, I was often away tramping for weekends to keep myself occupied. WT&MC does a Winter Solstice trip every year to the club lodge, where you daywalk on Saturday, party Saturday night and then mooch around a bit on Sunday before heading home. Plans are always fluid depending on who is around, what the people who are capable to lead feel like doing and what the weather is up to. This year we had fantastic clear, crisp skies. The schedule indicated Tama Lakes as the daywalk, with a mountain bike trip to a local loop.

Paul, Rene and I all agreed we didn’t really feel like doing the Tama Lakes walk again. I had done it in November 2007 and found it a bit tedious. Instead, with clear weather in winter we were keen to head over to the Tongariro Crossing to do a there-and-back to South Crater, picking up the mountain bikers on our way home in the afternoon.

The sun was bright and there was not a cloud in the sky as we parked the van at the Mangatepopo Road End. It was absolutely freezing, especially in the shade. As we meandered up the valley towards Soda Springs, every pool of water we found was frozen up to two cm thick, and further up the valley even the streams were frozen over in places. Large segments of the track also obviously never saw sunshine at that time of year!



We passed very few people, except one really oddly dressed tourist in jeans and chucks, carrying a stereo in her shoulder bag… She must have had a really early start, because she was at Soda Springs the same time we were, about 10am, heading down the valley towards Mangatepopo Hut.




Up the new devils staircase in the sun and cold, we got to the top and sat down to take a morning tea break, enjoying the views across to Mt Taranaki and the sunshine. A decision was made that I would wander into South Crater and try some photography, while the guys were going to try and circumnavigate the bowl of South Crater and pick me up on their way back.

All of a sudden there was a scream from slightly further along the track. We all looked at each other and looked across to the large asian woman who we had all noted walking towards us. We waited 10 seconds or so to see if she was going to get herself up, and when she continued screaming instead we all packed up our gear and headed over to find her moaning in pain, lying in a puddle with her ankle at a very odd angle.

In these conditions, with the cold and a strong breeze, the first concern we had was moving her out of that puddle because none of us had suitable dry clothing to change her into. So we grabbed her under the arms and around the knees and shunted her ever so slightly backwards. She spoke almost no English, so our examination was exceedingly cursory – “where does it hurt” was understood well enough as she pointed at her ankle (which was obviously damaged). “Are you warm enough” generated a response of her grabbing more clothes out of her bag (she was remarkably well prepared compared to many other tourists we had heard stories about).

There were no two ways about it. There was no way we could get her out ourselves. We were at the top of the Devils Staircase with a larger (about 95kg+) woman who spoke very little English and with only a very basic first aid kit. We couldn’t support her ankle enough for her to use it, and we didn’t have enough strength to carry her out, nor could we explain sufficiently assisting her out. So out came the cellphone and a desperate attempt at finding enough signal to make an emergency call.

Our lunch spot had coverage sufficient only to send texts and make emergency calls. Perfect. We pulled out the map and the GPS and got readings off both of them for where we were. Rene thought it a bit odd that I asked for the police when I rang 111, but then had a dawning realisation when I then asked for the northern region search & rescue coordinator. Wonderfully, the woman we got on the phone was an avid tramper and had been in our exact location less than three weeks earlier.

Once we had given them an update on what was happening, there was nothing to do but sit and wait. Unfortunately, none of us had brought a cooker or similar with us, so a hot brew was out of the question. It also wouldn’t have been fair on our injured party as we had been instructed that they were only to be given water. No painkillers, no food in case she needed urgent surgery or similar once in hospital.

After what seemed like an eternity (but was only really a couple of hours) and a couple of false alarms where the aircraft flying towards us was obviously on a tour, the chopper we wanted hovered into view right down at the road end, following the track up to find us, as we had expected they would. The closest landing spot was our morning tea seating area, slightly above us.




During this time we had encountered several other tramping parties, some of whom had decided we obviously had things under control, some who completely ignored the situation, but we were so thankful for the small party of kiwis who gave up their attempt to get over the crossing in order to take a note back to the road end for our patients friend explaining the situation, and making a phone call to confirm our situation to SaR once they were back in cellphone range.

Finally someone else was taking over the situation, and we were all exceedingly glad. By this stage Rene, Paul and I were all wearing every single item of clothing we had brought along for the day and we were still feeling the cold. The cloud was also closing in on us, which had caused us substantial concern about visibility for getting the helicopter in if it had come in any further before it arrived.

After loading our patient into a stretcher and taking a quick photo of the “team”, we carried her over and up to the chopper and they were off to try and find her tramping companion – the one we had seen earlier in the day carrying a stereo and wearing jeans. As for us, we were off back down the track towards our van and its warmth. By the time we had made it down into the valley, the ledge we had been standing on when the helicopter arrived was no longer visible. By the time we were 20 minutes down the valley, even the head of the valley had disappeared into the cloud.





Once back in the van, it was time to wait for the mountain biking boys and then we were back to the lodge in near-darkness to have hot showers, retell our story and rest up before dinner and the all-evening party that is solstice weekend.