The original plan was to take on Mt Olympus. However, this mountain is on private land and recent floods damaged the access road so permissions to access Mt Olympus are scarce now. In the morning at the petro station, we decided that Mt Winterslow makes for a suitable backup.

11 keen CTC members left Z Russley carpark with expectations of a good day out. We made necessarily stop in Rakaia for a breakfast and arrived at Sharpinfalls carpark around 9.40 AM. Through the bush, we followed an old well maintain track which was sparsely permolated. We took a quick break on the bushline but the winds were getting stronger so we didn’t get to enjoy sitting for too long. Straight after the bushline, just under pt1320, there is a steep scrambly section that needed some care, but after that, the ridge was just easy-going. The snow slowed us down a bit but nothing major – and it certainly wasn’t hard enough to use crampons.

We reached the top in cirka 4 hours. Winterslow Range was very scenic and dramatic with north-westerly dark clouds sitting on top of them. On the top of Mt Winterslow, I initiated building a snowman which provided a good photo opportunity and then we started going back the way we came. After a couple of hundred meters, we met Bryce who’s been a wee bit slower than us and who was still heading up. But perhaps he just wanted to provide a good photo opportunity? His dark silhouette with the yellow sky and bright clouds in the background was very impressive. We reached the cars in 3-3.5h depending on the enthusiasm of each tramper.

Great day out, as usual. Thanks David for leading!

Rough stats: 17 km, 1600m up, 7.5h

Tramped on: 25th July 2021.

Participants: David Sutton (leader), Michal Klajban (photos, scribe, GPX), Liam Dangerfield, Emma Rogers, Xiaoqiu Jiang, Byron Harvey, Bryce Williamson, Jimmy Philpott, Geoffrey Cornelis, Jacqui O’Neill, Jack O’Connor

Juang’s video: https://youtu.be/4qeOHQO7Fx8

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

•