This article was first published in the Tararua Tramper Volume 96, no 5, June 2024
Up the Wharekauhau to North Saddle & .616 MF
Wednesday 17 April 2024
The genesis of the trip was one led by Franz to the same area in December 2021. On the earlier trip we travelled up the Wharekauhau and explored up onto .616 which has a nice flat, sunny lunch spot and great views. We noticed a footpad heading towards the main range and thought it might be fertile ground for a future foray.
Hence six of us left Ocean Beach shortly after 9 a.m., passed the first forks and after two hours reached the lovely basin that Franz likens to a South Island alpine scene.
We checked out the route we intended to take later, a spur down from just north of the Knife Edge. Franz is pointing it out.
But first to travel up the right fork and negotiate a waterfall at 550 m on the last push up to North Saddle. Some of us had been here before on a very windy day on a trip led by Colin Cook. On that trip an alternative to sidling the waterfall had been found and we attempted to do so again but went a bit high, and ended up with a very steep scramble up onto a spur just below North Saddle.
While we gathered to get our adrenalin levels back to normal and eat morning tea, Jenny checked the top of the spur and did not like the look of the scrub, so we slipped off to the left on a goat track, and kept working through trees to the south of North Saddle, until we popped out next to it. Unfortunately the light southerly had brought clag in, but the very light wind made travel south easy.
We were checking the gps and looking carefully at the terrain to the east as we travelled. Franz remembered a club trip he did as a sixteen year old, led by Chris Horne, when they camped on North Saddle, in the patch of trees. The terrain and the gps did not quite agree as to our drop-off point, but Jenny reminded us that the map is not always perfect. We set off on a good footpad and were delighted that it took us all the way to .616 where we had lunch at 2 p.m. Some parts reminded us we were following a goat track and goats are shorter than people, and parts were a bit exposed, but the travel was very straightforward.
Jenny had a trace from our earlier trip, so travel down to the alpine basin was steep but steady. We retraced our steps down the Wharekauhau, reaching the cars seven and a half hours after our departure.
Jenny fell behind as we travelled back downstream. We were very excited when she caught up and showed us her photo of a footprint next to the water she had come across. We thought it looked like a kiwi.
We all felt elated with the achievement and especially pleased to have covered unrecorded territory.
(Photos by Nina, Jenny and Janette. Trace by David)
- Party members
- Franz Hubmann (leader), Jenny Mason, David McNabb, Janette Roberts (scribe), Nina Sawicki, Tim Stone.