The Eyre Mountains have long been my winter playground, almost since my arrival in NZ twenty-five years ago. A range of lower peaks: valley floors and sides beech-forested to 1000m, tussock and rock tops rising to 1800m on the highest summits. A few brief, rough tracks exist on the periphery, but beyond that this is a wooded land of untracked, steep-sided valleys, leading up to open, tarn-studded post-glacial basins at their heads. The valleys are separated by broad open rock and tussock ridges, each leading up from a river confluence towards the heights of the Eyre Mountains range at their head. Small two-bunk biv’s with smoky open fires lie tucked against the bushline at the head of most valleys providing welcome winter shelter and warmth. The un-tracked bush makes for challenging but safe winter exploration, and the lower broad ridges offer exciting snow travel without the exposure and avalanche risks of the main Southern Alps.
And so, over the decades, I have visited in winter: tramping the frost-flats and wooded valleys. Scuttling crampon-shod over the low alpine saddles to reach safety of the next valley and shelter of the next hut, or making those glorious full-day tops traverses on glistening snow and ice under blue winter skies.
And throughout I have looked up at the main Eyre Mountains range that forms the backbone of the park, and thought to myself: ‘I’ll have to come back in summer one day and explore those pointy bits’.
Basemap topo50 CC(attribution) LINZ
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ZL3/SL-018
I leave the truck at the Oreti River bridge: one of many broad tussock, shingle and marsh valleys that run south from the Wakatipu. Once serving to drain the vast glacier-choked Wakatipu basin in times of glaciation, these vast golden valleys now lie wide and empty: bog-and-tussock-clad, free of the forest that covers the surrounding valleysides.
Oreti River valley below the Mt Nicholas Station Road bridge
We head downriver under blue skies and a dauntingly heavy pack. This is only a 7-day trip, food for 9 - and I wonder how it was that just a decade ago this would have counted as light! Oh to be young and stupid again.
It’s the middle of the red deer roar, and Easter weekend, so I avoid the comforts of Upper Oreti Hut and climb, sweating, through beech forest to reach the tussock tops above. Our first day is to be spent traversing the broad, flat tops of the outlier western range of the park to reach Lower Windley Hut at it’s southern boundary. From there we’ll spend the remaining 6 days re-tracing our route along the parallel, but more challenging main Eyre Mountains range.
Looking back up the Oreti to the saddle with the Mavora Lakes from the approach to ZL3/SL-018
This flat-topped outlier range has just one SOTA summit - ZL3/SL-018 - and we reach that at 1pm, a couple of hours after our alerted time. I really do need to get hill-fit before we reach the steep stuff! (that, or eat some of the food that’s weighing down the pack).
For this trip, I’ve brought the Discovery TX-500, and my 60/40m combo EFHW giving me all HF bands between 60m and 10m (except 17m) from one if it’s two feed-points. When I set up on the summit, all bands are deathly silent - not even a peep of FT8 to be heard: uh-oh. But thankfully, four wind-battered contacts dribble in over the next 15 minutes and we qualify the peak, mic tucked into the raincoat to block the howling wind.
Activating ZL3/SL-018. Mavora Lakes beyond
The remainder of the afternoon is spent meandering south along the range, resisting wind-gusts and glancing nervously east at the jagged outline of the main Eyre Mountains along which we will return.
Following tussock tops as they descend to Lower Windley Hut on the southern park boundary. The range’s southernmost peak, West Dome, beyond
Weaving east-west around the heads of broad beech-forested valleys we drop late in the day into the beech forest in the lower reaches of the Windley to the comforts of Lower Windley Hut, situated on the southern park boundary. The neighbouring forestry company has, for several years, blocked vehicle access to the hut, and to my relief it lies empty.
Day 2
ZL3/SL-105
Old logging tracks on the boundary of the park lead onto the tops at the southern end of the main range of the Eyre Mountains, and we swing south along the last of the range. Low now, dipping and rising in and out of the bush, the range makes one final rocky reach for the skies at West Dome [ZL3/SL-105] before diving terminally to the vast expanses of the Waimea Plains.
Waimea Plains from West Dome
Battered by a gusty, howling westerly we find the first sheltered spot within the AZ and set up for the activation. Four in the log on 40m over a span of 15 minutes, and no takers on 20m, then time to get moving.
Activating West Dome, the rounded hump of ZL3/HSL-039 below, ZL3/SL-169 tree-clad beyond
ZL3/HSL-039
The broad tussock dome 4km to the north gives the chance to add a HEMA summit (ZL3/HSL-039) to the log. Calmer weather and improving band conditions on both 40m and 20m net a more respectable 11 contacts into VK and ZL, before picking up the overnight gear from where we cached it and continuing north.
ZL3/SL-169
Back in the beech forest, travel is slow through a dense understory - more deer required! The low 2-pointer ZL3/SL-169 is the last of the day, antenna threaded between the beech branches. It offers little incentive for photography but nets 6 in the log, including a park-to-park with @VK2IO. Finally, we drop to the eastern branch of the Windley to camp beneath the trees in small, dry flats on its banks.
Windley River, east branch
Day 3
ZL3/HSL-032
Heavy rain is forecast for Friday night and on into Saturday, so a short day is planned to reach the comforts of the remote Islands Hut. Back onto the tops, another rounded bush-clad hump (ZL3/HSL-032) gives chance for a smoko and a HEMA activation. 40m is full of the low S1-2 chatter of NA, SA and EU DX, but frighteningly lacking in anything closer to home. I spend 45 minutes trying all bands between 60m and 20m, but in the end it is 40m that delivers my four marginal, hard-won contacts.
Activating ZL3/SL-042
ZL3/SL-042
Battered again by the wind - this time a rare gusty north-easterly, we exit the bush. The unnamed ZL3/SL-042 forms the first real summit as the Eyre Range ascends from its low foothills, becoming the alpine range for which it is known. It proves too windy to set up an inverted V so the antenna is strung as a sloper between two rocky outcrops on the sheltered southern face of the peak. The skip remains very long and band conditions marginal at best, but we manage 5 contacts in a thankfully brief 10 minutes before packing up and seeking the more sheltered comforts of Islands Hut in the basin 500m below. Lunch and an early night.
Settling in for the long haul (Saturday looks like a hut-day write-off from the weather forecast) I cast my eyes through the hut’s meager magazine collection: 1 copy of Wilderness and two copies of the FMC’s Backcountry Bulletin. Amazingly one of the Backcountrys contains a brief paragraph on SOTA, written by regular columnist Uncle Jacko (breaking cover as ZL4IG).
FMC Backcountry Bulletin - June 21 - Uncle Jacko’s Cookery Column
Day 4
By 10am the next day I’d read all the magazines, including decade-old adverts and product reviews for probably no-longer-in-production gear. Played ‘guess the location’ with all their photographs. Drained as much of my limited battery capacity as I dared practicing morse on my phone, and cursed the dead-silent HF bands. So when the rain eased to a light drifting haar we packed up and left the dry boredom of Islands Hut for the rain-soaked landscape outside.
ZL3/SL-008
One kilometer of valley travel took us to a good spur leading to the tops, pushing through drenched, waist-high rolly-poly tussock. By which point the hours spent waiting for the rain to stop had achieved very little. Once off the valley floor the wetting mist enveloped us, but with a well-defined single ridgeline navigation was straight forward. The scree-topped ZL3/SL-008 proved unmemorable, with 11 in the log and 2 park-to-parks on a single-band 40m activation. Pack up damp gear, move along.
Wetting mist coats everything on ZL3/SL-008
ZL3/SL-007
Three kilometers later we broke the 1800m contour for the first time for the unnamed ZL3/SL-007. Scree had shifted from fine grey shingle to coarse red rocks, but other than that, little had changed since the earlier activation - rain soaking visitors and gear alike.
Wetting mist coats everything on ZL3/SL-007
We make a quick 40m-only activation to get the numbers before we got any wetter. The band, bizarrely, dominated by VKs - unusual on 40m at such an early hour. The first summit-to-summit of the trip with @VK7FADZ.
Thankful to be done we drop 300m off the ridge to camp by a small tarn. Having licked herself dry, the dog decides that nest-maintenance duties require her to spend the night keeping the tent floor and fly dry by the same method. Each to their own - I put in the ear-plugs and go to sleep.
Day 5
ZL3/SL-006, ZL3/HSL-006 and ZL3/SL-012
Tarn camp below ZL3/SL-007
Day five dawns overcast but dry. The overnight wind has done a good job of drying the landscape and the tent. An easy 100m scramble north takes us to the saddle between ZL3/SL-007 and Helen Peaks (ZL3/SL-006).
Though the landscape to our west is clear, an ocean of cloud forms fiord-like fingers up the valleys to our east - rising as the day warms. I had looked forward to spending the trip gazing down on the familiar haunts of previous trips in the western valleys, but we see just the head basins.
Helen Peaks, ZL3/SL-012 beyond from above tarn camp
Helen Peaks (ZL3/SL-006) - which so dominates the skyline in the Crommel and Irthing valleys - proves to be an unspectacular mound of fine scree. A broad, rolling ridgeline leads on to an unnamed HEMA summit (ZL3/HSL-006) before swinging left and dropping to a low saddle with ZL3/SL-012.
ZL3/SL-009 (left) and ZL3/SL-012 (right) from the HEMA summit ZL3/HSL-006, Ashton River headwaters separating the two
ZL3/SL-009
The clag moves in again over the afternoon and we lose visibility - just when we needed it. I had hoped to follow the ridgeline round the head of the Ashton basin to reach ZL3/SL-009, but a steep, bluffed, 100m ascent from the valley head to the plateau to its west looked marginal on the maps. In the end we chicken out, drop 700m in to the Ashton valley to our west before making another 700m climb directly back to the summit.
ZL3/SL-009 sits about 10m above the cloud, so we get a pleasant activation. But with the next day’s travel the most uncertain of the trip, the cloud gives no opportunity to spy out viable routes through the upcoming sheer terrain.
Glimpses of ZL3/SL-004 from ZL3/SL-009. Not ideal route planning weather.
We drop 200m to camp by the deep blue waters of another alpine tarn, directly below our next target of ZL3/SL-004.
Tarn between ZL3/SL-009 and ZL3/SL-004
Day 6
ZL3/SL-004
The crux of the trip: nothing is certain about this day. Draping air photos over an SRTM terrain model, all three peaks look inaccessible without climbing gear. And worse yet, there is no clear viable route between the three catchments involved in passing ZL3/SL-004 to reach the ridglines beyond. However, experience tells me that the coarse nature of the SRTM DEM, and the deep shadows on the air photos mean that route may well exist, too narrow or shaded to show up on the imagery.
Views clear of approaches to ZL3/SL-004
Cloud clears by the morning and we are able to spy out high terraces above the lake leading to a narrow scree route attaining the ridgeline at what topomaps show as the 1800m contour. Just an additional 5m climb will put us in the AZ of the 1830m peak. Worth a shot!
ZL3/SL-004 from top of scree chute, photo taken from far end of the antenna. Yellow wire leads up the exposed scramble to our OP
We retrace our steps, picking our way up the edge of loose scree chutes to the plateau to our east before discarding the overnight gear for the climb. A steep, bluffed sidle takes us into the grassy terraces below the peak, and a mixture of scrabbling and cliff-face assisted hauling pulls me up the last 100m of free-running fine scree to the ridgeline. GPS elevation put us at 1808m and in a position within the AZ polygon. But I make a 5m scramble to a small shelf above the saddle just to be sure, having tied the far end of the EFHW to a rock opposite. DO NOT LOOK DOWN.
Back over our tarn camp to ZL3/SL-009 from ZL3/SL-004
ZL3/SL-015
Ridgeline to ZL3/SL-015 (right) from ZL3/SL-004
From the summit of ZL3/SL-004 I am able to spy out the ridgeline to the next target of ZL3/SL-015. Things do not look promising, but if I can pass the two rock buttresses to its south (right), there looks like a chance it might be climbable from basins beyond, to its SE. .
Final 50m to ZL3/SL-015. Up that diagonal rock chute then an exposed scramble to the top
A very steep descent on hard-pack and snow grass drops east off the SE ridge of ZL3/SL-004 into the head of Windley Creek (a different Windley creek). From there, we are thankful for good chamois tracks which show viable routes through the two rock barriers into a steep tussock basin beyond, SE of SL3/SL-015. Only the final 50m of the ascent proves technical, a rocky chute leading to 30m below the summit - not quite enough. So we are forced to make the exposed bare-rock scramble to the summit itself. Just don’t tell Sim I took the dog up there!
Activating ZL3/SL-015. The previous summit, ZL3/SL-004, beyond
ZL3/SL-003
Again, the activation of ZL3/SL-004 gave good opportunities to examine access onto ZL3/SL-003. There appears to be a possible scramble along the ridgeline, ascending from the tarns to its SW, with only the two tight saddles on the approach looking tricky. If we can reach the tarns, that is - first we need to circumnavigate our current peak.
ZL3/SL-003 (mid-right) and ZL3/SL-001 (top-right) from ZL3/SL-015 saddle. Final tarn camp reached from the valley far below
From the saddle between SL-004 and SL-015 we are forced to drop 300m on steep, coarse, mobile scree into the dry valley below, before reascending to the tarns up good tussock faces beside the creek draining the tarns. The coarse scree, and lack of alternative paw-friendly routes proves tricky for my companion, and for the first time in the trip she seems less than happy.
Looking back up the scree chute to the ZL3/SL-015 saddle, the peak prominent mid photo
It’s only midday, but I set up camp at the tarns, 3 catchments, 3 passes but only 1.5km north of our previous night’s position. The dog happily curls up on my sleeping bag and I head off to make a tired attempt on the final SOTA summit of the trip.
Another tarns camp!
On first scree and later bare rock, the ascent proves straight forward apart from two airy scrambles to pass the two cleft-saddles on the approach. With what I can only describe as fatigued amazement I set up the radio for the last time to activate the final SOTA summit of the trip - for all three summits today were highly speculative, and I’d never expected to achieve the AZ of them all.
Activating ZL3/SL-003, HSL-004 beyond
Looking back at the terrain we’d traversed that day, the sense of disbelief does not fade. This would have to be some of the most impractical-looking country I have traversed in some time!
Days 4, 5 and 6
To our north lies the highest summit in Southland - Jane Peak - ZL3/SL-001. However, to my relief I have already activated that one, so we can stop here.
Jane Peak, ZL3/SL-001
With a mixture of relief, happiness and exhaustion I make the descent back to the tarns and my camp below to enter into negotiations over the ownership of the sleeping bag and air mattress for the night. All downhill tomorrow, little dog.
Descending to tarns. There’s a tent down there somewhere
Day 7
ZL3/HSL-004 and ZL3/HSL-009
Two further HEMA summits lie on the ridgeline dropping west back into the Oreti, and it seems just rude not to put them on the air. So the final morning includes their two ascents.
ZL3/HSL-004 and ZL3/HSL-009 from ZL3/SL-004 - our route out
The wind has picked up again and makes antenna deployment tricky, but they get activated before we make the 1000m descent to the Oreti flats below, and the waiting truck.
All that remains is the descent to the Oreti Valley, 1000m below
The 30l of diesel required to get home costs $50 more than the 30l used on the way out, but at least no-one’s bombed my home ‘back to the stone-age’ in the interim, so I count my blessings for living where I do.
