Tararua’s in the Snow

These were taken on a rather splendid overnight hike to Powell Hut in the Tararua’s with two friends, Simon and John.

The trip nearly ended before it even started due to someone bringing along two right-footed boots! To protect the guilty, I will not name the offending party.

 Powell Hut.

In the distance is Totara Flats. This is where we were originally going to tramp to, but due to some boot related issues, decided to do Powell Hut instead.

 On the second day we decided to climb up to Mt Holdsworth, which is the last peak on the right.

 On the way up to Mt Holdsworth. You can’t really see it on this picture but the conditions were rather nasty. The snow was very deep in places and was covered in a hard layer of ice. This meant that we were either slipping over (we didn’t have crampons) or falling through the ice and often ending up to our waists in snow. On top of this the temperature was well below freezing and it was blowing a gale. We got close to the summit, but in the end common sense prevailed and we beat a tactical retreat.

Sir Edmund Glynn