Mitchells Hut – Mt. Dasher
Sunday the 29th November 2015
This was meant to be a weekend trip but with only two of us able to make it for the weekend and the weather being a mix bag it was decided to make it a day trip.
Eight of us turned up for an early 7am start on the Sunday. It was off out to Mt Dasher Station up the gravel road past Scout Hut and on to a rough 4WD track to Mitchells Hut arriving at about 8.30am. The weather was cool but clear so it was on with our day packs.
First we checked out Mitchells hut which has just been done up a bit with it only being a four bunk hut now. It was then off up the 4WD track under the rocky Siberia Hill for about 2km until Mt Dasher and Kattothryst came into view.
We then left the track and headed towards Mt Dasher over a big flat tussock area. With the tussock around knee height and Volcanic rocks hiding in the tussock it was hard to find a good animal track to walk on. After about 3km we were at the base of Mt Dasher and after about a 200m climb we were on top at 11.15 am.
The top of Dasher is all volcanic rocks but we had good views down the Pig Root, Kattothryst, Siberia Hill and Mt Obi. All the other high peaks had cloud around them and some low cloud was starting to build in behind us so we decided to head for Half Moon hut for lunch while we still had some clear skies.
Half Moon Hut is a small 6 bunk tin hut but was a good place to have lunch. The low cloud came in with a light shower and then it cleared again. After lunch we headed off back over the flat, rocky, tussock area hoping to have time to climb Kattothryst, but soon the low cloud and drizzle came back in with visibility down to about 20m and we couldn’t see Kattothryst.
I had taken a few way points on my GPS in the morning so they came in handy in finding our way back to the 4wd track. Once on the 4WD track John said there was a volcanic vent crater just off the track a bit further up, so off we set to look for it in the fog and after about half an hour we did find it. It was then back to Mitchells hut and the vehicles.
With all the drizzle the 4wd track was quite greasy and the 4WDs did a lot of slipping and sliding on the way out. At one point Robbie had to stop this vehicle to do the cramp walk around the truck. We were soon out and home by 5pm so thanks to; Ross, Linda, John, Robbie, Uwe, Sylvia and Jen for making it a good day on the hills. Neville.
