It wasn’t intended that way, but this turned out to be a solo trip. I don’t much enjoy tramping on my own mostly due to safety reasons, and even after all these years up in the hills, my appalling sense of direction. A combination of fine weather, a free weekend and no one else being available made up my mind for me.
I got fairly close to the summit a few years ago but turned back about 40 minutes from the top due to the usual horrible weather.
I sneaked of work early on Friday afternoon and drove the 80km or so to the “Pines” roadend in the Tararua Forest Park. I left the car there and walked to Mitre Flats Hut where I stayed the night.
The track to the hut stays close to and somewhat above the Waingawa River and is only about 8km long and involves no big climbs, but takes a solid 4hrs to complete. For the first 20 minutes or so the route follows a gravel road and is a nice and pleasant start of the walk. Before long the track entered the bush and the going became much harder due to the constant rise and fall of the track and the relentless battling with tree roots and rocks. The weather was really hot as well and it was a relief to arrive at a sign telling me I was 8 minutes away from a swing bridge which leads on to the hut a further 5 minutes away on the other side of the river. Mind you there was a really steep drop of around 80m down to the bridge, so it seemed like a very long 8 minutes.
I arrived at the hut to find out that I was the only one there. Despite not liking tramping on my own I was well pleased to have the place to myself. As it was getting dark, all that was left to do was cook dinner and then head of to bed.
I was up bright and early the next day, had a quick breakfast and was on my way by 0630. The reason for the early start was in order to beat the heat of the day and also to give myself a better chance of arriving at a cloud free summit. This is a real consideration as the summits are only cloud free for about 80 days a year.
The track to Mitre starts about 5 minutes walk from the hut and climbs steadily up to the treeline at about 1100m. I had expected to struggle on this section of the walk, but the track was well marked and I am fitter than I have been for a while, so made it up to the open tops in under 2hrs.
From this point the views were pretty spectacular, but the track was also more difficult to follow, as it is not officially marked above the tree line. Previous trampers however had built up a series of small rock cairns which marked the way and weren’t too difficult to follow, particularly once I became attuned to spotting them. After climbing for another 20 minutes or so Mitre came into view, which was a welcome sight. A less welcome sight was the cloud starting to build up just above the summit and which spurred me on to a real turn of speed to make it to the top, which in the end I reached in just under 3 hours and which for me is pretty good going.
As mentioned before the Tararua’s have a reputation for really foul weather, but here I was on the summit in a tee shirt, in the sun, and with hardly a breath of wind. I had time for a quick lunch and a few pictures before the cloud really starting coming down and with the visibility getting poor I decided it was time to make my way back down to the hut.
I arrived back at the hut at about 1pm, which is way earlier than I thought I would.
The original plan was to stay there for another night and then walk out the next day, but I didn’t really fancy hanging around and was still feeling pretty good so made a snap decision to carrying on walking out to the roadend.
In retrospect this was a poor choice, as after an hour or so I started to feel rather tired and still had a long way to go. This meant that a lot of the time I was pretty well walking on autopilot and probably wasn’t paying as much attention as I should.
Midway through the walk I inadvertently stepped to close to the edge of the track and started to quickly slip down a very steep bank. Instinctively I grabbed out for a passing tree route, which happened to flash past. I only just caught it and managed to scramble the few metres back onto the track. Looking back at where I fell was a real shock as the slope was about 60° or 70° and the tree root was the last piece of vegetation between me and the Waingawa River several hundred metres below. This really shook me up and could have turned out very differently, and hopefully is a lesson well learnt.
The flirt with the grim reaper aside, this was a terrific trip and has spurred me on to have another go at bagging the North Island's two highest volcanoes, Mt Taranaki and Mt Ruapehu later on this year.
View from the Mitre Flats track.
The swing bridge.
5 minutes to the hut.
Mitre Flats Hut.
I had the place to myself.
On the way up to Mitre getting close to the bush line.
Up above the bush line.
Looking towards Mitre.
Getting a bit closer.
This was taken from the narrow exposed ridge which leads on to the summit. Not somewhere to be on a windy day.
Mitre summit.
This was taken near the roadend showing the Wainagawa River
View from the Mitre Flats track.
The swing bridge.
5 minutes to the hut.
Mitre Flats Hut.
I had the place to myself.
On the way up to Mitre getting close to the bush line.
Up above the bush line.
Looking towards Mitre.
Getting a bit closer.
This was taken from the narrow exposed ridge which leads on to the summit. Not somewhere to be on a windy day.
Mitre summit.Mitre 360°.
