Mt Somers – February 2012
Trip Report – 24th- 26th February 2012
Five of us left Neville’s place about 6 pm and headed for Geraldine where we stayed the night in a cabin in the campground. During the night the front moved through bringing rain but by morning we had clearing skies and the promise of settled weather. A 6am start meant that we arrived at the Sharplin Falls car park by 8 with sunny skies and no wind. Along the way we had excellent views of Mt Peel and then a snow covered Mt Hutt.
We were tramping by 8.15 am up a steep track along the south face of Mt Somers. The initial climb is about 300 metres through beech forest, muddy and awkward in places but we made reasonable time. A second section is a more gradual climb to the junction of Mt Somers summit track at 1085 metres. We were now in more open grassland with some forested catchments and rewarded with fine views of the Canterbury plains out to the east. The Mt Somers range looked impressive in the sunshine with a mixture of scree and sub-alpine tussock slopes but with a further 6 hours or so to the hut, there was no talk of deviations. We made the Acland shelter which looks more like a hut from a distance along an undulating and uneven track often very boggy by about noon for an early lunch. After filling out the book and noting that not many had done he route recently, we continued mainly downhill through forest crossing a number of creeks to then climb up to more open country with increasingly dramatic views of nearby ranges. At about 990 metres with many refreshing streams along the way we finally joined the Rhyolite ridge track, one of the 2 options for going from the Woolshed car park to the hut.
From here we were on a wide track across scrub and tussock with about 5kms left. At one point the track offered tantalising views of the Woolshed hut down a steep gorge only to turn 45 degrees and head up on a steep climb to a local feature – the bus stop overhang. Fearing that the service was probably not very regular we continued on through interesting volcanic rock formations , different wild flowers descending 500 meters on a poled route in a short distance to a stream, a swing bridge and finally the valley floor and the hut . We had covered about 13.5 kms in just over 8 hours and met just one group of air cadets around the bus stop who were doing the loop back to the Woolshed car park.
The hut is only 5 years old, cost $425, 000 to build and is very comfortable. It’s 26 beds and was full, mostly people up from CHCH. We had an enjoyable night with Bron telling some stories of previous trips including a very hairy one across the Copland pass. We were away early in some light drizzle at 7.30am across Morgan stream and up a good track to the saddle, the highest point of the tramp at 1170 metres. On the way we stopped off for a short side trip to look at the water caves. By the time we had begun the descent from the saddle, it had stopped raining and we had some sunshine to admire the dramatic rock formations on the northern face of Mt Somers formed by the cooling of the lava flows. We had our first lunch at Pinnacles hut about 10.30 followed by a second down on the banks of Bowyers stream and hour or so later. By now we were descending in beech forest negotiating some awkward slips in muddy conditions with both Ann and Steve getting wasp stings unaware of the dangers around the black honey dew coated trees. This spurred us on up the final climb of 100 metres over Dukes Knob and a sharp descent onto the actual walkway. Ann emerged first, mud splattered and a bit dishevelled to be greeted by a 6 year old saying … Hey a real tramper! Fame at last. A few minutes later we were all back at the car park about 6 hours after we left Woolshed Creek hut. After packing up we stopped in Geraldine for the traditional post –trip ice cream and were back in Oamaru about 5 pm.
A fabulous trip with varied and interesting terrain, great weather, superb views and good company. Thanks to Neville, Bron, Jim and Ann.
Steve