CRASH the large
log broke under my feet; SNAP the branch I held onto broke too, ohhhh
Noooo. Backwards I fell feeling some negative Gs. Fortunately I landed
on my pack deep into bushes. HA, he's Turtled himself exclaimed Rob.
With my feet and hands facing skyward I could do little to get up, I
couldn't even roll side to side. Finally after some ribbing Bruce gave
me a hand up, thanks for asking guys, no I didn't hurt myself! Lesson
learnt, always hold onto something with leaves!
Everyone asked the same question, why do you want to climb up Mt
Marks? The simple answer was that I could see signs of a premo
campsite. Finally I had timed a camping trip with a full moon. We
watched the golden globe rise out of the ocean from Tony's house
before we left Dunedin. By llpm we had enjoyed moonlit views on our
travel to Pleasant Flat. Before bedding down on the concrete floor of
the shelter I breathed in the view of Mt Hooker on a frosty night. The
moon like a spotlight shone on my face in spite of the power crisis as
I slept.
The early morning sun broke up thin valley mist as we drove out to
Haast. An icy wind blew cold mountain air down the Haast valley out
over the ocean. We quickly donned packs following a 4WD track into the
bush, which led to a rock quarry. Finally after much deliberation we
went bush but where are Matt and James? We've lost them already! After
a surprise visit by a Morepork we went back out to find Matt and James
chatting to a DoC contractor and his dog who were waiting for a
helicopter. Earlier we spotted his 4WD parked beside a log puller and
steel cables. He was employed to count pests with traps. Only the
traps didn't trap they counted, there's a word for these non traps, I
know counters.
So the ridge I had planned to ascend was a good route and had "nice'
bush but so also was the ridge behind the quarry. Back along the 4WD
track saw us at the quarry. With so much river gravel and boulders I
couldn't see the point of blowing up rocks! Anyway, we strolled back
and forth trying to find a point of least resistance, for goodness
sake it's 10am already lets get in there! SMACK I got lashed across my
face by a supplejack vine following too close to Bruce. Man, I got
clobbered so hard my eyes are watering, no, damn my glasses got
knocked off. Tony assertively told me "DON'T MOVE!" Hell, is there a
snake or something about to bite me? No, I was standing on a canopy of
plants and my glasses were about to fall into the darkness below,
never to be seen again, well from my eyes anyway! Thanks Tony.
Immediately I found clothing, Bruce had left me a trail, how generous.
We quickly learnt to keep the person ahead (or is that shaking trees)
in view so there was no possibility of separation. We regularly called
out to each other mostly from the middle point of the group to
maintain cohesion, or was it so no one got shot by inept hunters? Trev
followed deer trails which followed the true right of a gully. At the
top of the gully there was still no ridge, yet we were now
descending!? The gully was in fact a fault line cutting across the
ridge. A verbal profusion from Bruce suddenly penetrated the peaceful
bush F.. K, F..K, F..K, F..K, Ohhhhhh ( pause, I can't think of a
stronger swearword),F..K, F..K ..... Then Rob started pulling down his
shorts. Bush fever is affecting our group! Later we found out that a
wasp hive had been disturbed, Bruce was stung three times and Rob
twice.
Gradually we gained height, finally the forest opened up and the sun
came in. We had lunch under some large Rata trees and threw sticks at
Bruce to gain a reaction. We were already exhausted by bush, which
grew down, and outwards like a hand continually on your forehead
stopping progress. Already we had referred more times to a map than I
had over the last six months of tramping.
Putting lunch to work we climbed steeply moving into silver beech
forest The deer trails were good with plenty of 'sign' but fallen
trees and saplings made life difficult. All of a sudden we found snail
shells, lots of them, we were at the bushline, four hours from the
quarry at sea level. Lovely views down to Jackson's Bay and Open Bay
islands were available as we slumped in a small clearing for twenty
minutes. Well this won't get us to the top exclaimed Rev, I mean Trev,
(spoilsport!).
It looked easy going above from now on, BUT we had to first clear the
scrub-line. I couldn't believe it, the scrub was so thick we decided
the going was better in the bush, crazy stuff! After gaining a bit of
height and a few hundred metres we built fortitude to meet the scrub
head on, or was it that the bush ended and we had no choice.
To get to the scrub we had to climb over a room sized rock which had
two trees backing onto its rock face. Trev and Matt got over fine.
However Bruce, Tony and Rob all tried at once, sedge style. Bruce went
for rock scrambling holding onto a tree limb, Tony climbed the tree
onto the limb Bruce clung to, as it wobbled so did Bruce, his feet
moved faster than a road runner cartoon, as he spat moss off the rock
face. Cracking noises came from the limb while Rob climbed a tree left
of Tony and its branches pushed onto Tony. Finally all three slumped
up onto the top of the rock! After this James and I went individually,
I risked a tree limb, which the others had tried to destroy, cracking
noises were heard as I looked to the ground three metres below. I
pulled myself up over the remaining two metres of rock above. James
used his iceaxe (the only time it got used all weekend) to hook
branches and rock holds alike.
I battled the front line of the scrub. I tried walking on top, pushing
forward and sideways even jumping up and over for some floundering. I
got that sinking feeling and fell down through the scrub to the ground
to gain a whole two metres. My childhood came to my aid as I started
crawling; excellent progress was made until I came to a boulder. With
seven of us combined we forced through slowly. Forty minutes later we
were past the worst but not a lot higher.
I had hoped there would be snow to melt for camping but there was only
occasional frost and ice. We climbed the remaining 300m in an hour to
find a lovely site 80m below Mt Marks on the summit ridge. James,
Bruce and Tony went down to the tarns for water while Trev, Rob, Matt
and I set up tents. The tarns were covered by ice and the closest
tarn, perhaps puddle, was picked and drained of 19 litres of water.
The poor tarn didn't know what hit it here on the 'dry' West Coast.
With much sweating and only 1 1/2 litres for the day I was dehydrated
and when the water came I gulped down a litre, the water was so cold I
was nearly sick. In windless conditions as the sun set in the sea we
enjoyed views from Cascade Point/Jackson's Bay and Haast to Mt Cook. A
four course meal ensued as we watched a satellite move north parallel
to the West Coast, stars appeared, some low on the horizon flashed
like red and orange lights and boat lights appeared out to sea.
I noticed a change of lighting on the mountains in the Okuru and Haast
valleys either side of us. Shadows turned to light and highlights
turned to shadow, it was the fall moon rising behind Mt Marks taking
over after sunset. Beams of moonlight shone down the Okuru and Haast
valleys out to sea, finally the moon lit up our campsite and torches
were redundant I enjoyed watching shooting stars fall toward the sea
lighting up like flares as they fell into a layer of high cloud toward
Australia. Bedtime finally called and we snuggled into the nice dry
hollows each of us had picked out. With a Minaret, two Microlights and
three biv bags mere was still enough tentage to fit three more people
in an emergency.
I woke to a beautiful red sunrise over Mt Cook, high cloud now covered
the whole sky and the moon was a hazy blob toward the sea. A NWer had
picked up and a layer of lower cloud lay parallel to the coast 20km
off shore, fortunately the high held it at bay. Over the following 3
days W-NW rainstorms pounded the West Coast while the East Coast
recorded record May temperatures! Rob was up already and brought up
another 19 litres of water from the tarn, I mean puddle.
We decided to climb over Mt Marks and follow the ridge I had picked
out on the true left of Greenstone Creek. We reached the summit ten
minutes from camp after a late 9am start. The view to Staircase Creek
became another trip in the planning and the main divide stretched
along the eastern horizon. Trev took a group photo but his camera had
other ideas swinging around with the wind, we all ran to try and stay
in the shot! A helicopter arrived below us to drop off the DOC
contractor and took less than 5 minutes to fly down to Haast. Before
going bush we lazed in the sun on soft dry tussock eating and taking
in the magical surroundings.
With no scrub we plunged into the bush after playing with three Keas.
Old leaves from ten metre tall Dracophyllum trees (I thought they only
grew as shrubs) made the ground slippery but we all got to have a
closer look at the snail shells. The ridge was steep and initially
well defined. Later bush pushed us true left toward a gully; we
alternated true left then right of the ridge taking the path of least
resistance. Lunch was nice with lots of bird life including a Kaka,
oh, and we got to throw more sticks at Bruce.
After lunch the going was unexpectedly steep with areas of bluffs to
avoid instead of the easy triangle shaped lower ridge that the map
showed. Now the fun began in the 'nice' bush the DoC contractor had
described. Bruce used sliding techniques, with only a yell as a
warning. Tony got skittled just like 10-pin bowling, STRIKE! Bruce
swept Tony's feet from under him as they both slid into the forest
Next Trev got taken out and men Tony again. Later Trev and I broke
trail (literally) crawling and sprawling horizontally over thick ferns
above a steep section. I unfortunately fell through headfirst but
managed to flip over and grab a well-rooted sapling so I didn't slide
down the steep ground under the ferns. Trev thanked me for making an
idiot of myself so he didn't have to! Often we slithered under tree
trunks, hands, knees, chests, backs even horizontally under supplejack
vines. Wire like roots and supplejack looped over feet, arms and
packs. I spent a few minutes at one stage just to untangle myself vine
by vine. Matt even nearly hung himself from a tree!
WASPS!!! yelled Matt, we all tried to hurry down through the forest
but supplejack held us back. Later, another wasp hive was opened, the
third for the weekend. I distinctly remember running down a clear area
between two fallen trees seeing wasps around my head and in front of
me, all blurred by speed. Pungas later slowed my descent as I crashed
through the forest like a plane doing an emergency landing in bush.
Only Tony and I escaped the weekend with no wasp stings, although I
did get a single sandfly bite in the 4WD as we drove home, and it was
a real nasty bite! Bruce came off worst with about 8
stings.
I used supplejack vines to repel steeper sections however NEVER use
supplejack vines as foot holds when down climbing rock faces. Despite
carefully standing at the stabilising midpoint of the vine I didn't
allow for swing in the opposite direction. My foot went skyward and I
like Tarzan swung on vines until I found the ground. Tony I believe
had a similar experience after an altercation with, you guessed it,
Bruce. James to his credit was ready to catch Tony had the vines not
held! A kilometre of flat forest saw us receive the added bonus of mud
and creeks as we coasted out to the main highway. We stepped out of
the bush at 3:40pm a full twenty minutes before the usual 4pm
deadline, excellent!
A special thanks to those who drove. Thanks also to Bruce who helped
organise the trip to a place I've always wanted to go to, especially
with such a great bunch of people.
Paul Van Kampen for Bruce Bernasconi, Tony Malcolm, Trevor Deaker, Rob
Porteous, Matt Corbett and James Griffiths.
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