A Garden of Eden Crossing
April 2008
By Terry Crippen
In late January, a mix of members from Wellington and other sections, as a well as the odd lapsed member, converged on the Whataroa Hotel for the start of a Garden of Eden trip; much to the amusement of the locals as there were weather warnings out with the tail end of a tropical cyclone approaching. That didn’t deter us though, as we were a bunch of hardy well weathered bods (ages ranging from about 55 to at least 65 years). Due to our mature years however we had opted to shorten the trip from a usual 12 day West Coast version G of E trip (starting up the Wanganui) to a 10 day one by making use of the chopper to get us to the edge of the Adams Wilderness on the Lambert Tops, thus cutting out two days hard work. Once in by chopper we headed higher, set up camp and weathered out the rain for two days. Plenty of flood control work was undertaken, along with much sodoku played.
After the rain, it was in via the standard route of crossing into the head of Aciphylla Ck then across into the Lambert catchment before sidling under the NE slopes of Lambert, then across Satan Col and the Garden of Allah to Adams Col. Having last been in the GoE back in the early 80s it was interesting to see changes. The area where we had snow-caved near Adams Col on those earlier trips was un-snowcavable, now being gentle slopes of ice rather than steeper slopes of deep snow. The snow depression adjacent to Icefall Lookout was now a considerably deeper, steeper ice and rock hole; and the eastern slopes of Mt Farrar where now heavily crevassed. Whether these were just a result of this summer seasons snow conditions or due to long term changes only the experts can tell us. However travel on the extensive snow fields was otherwise straightforward as the slots were tight and visible, so we only occasionally roped up for glacier travel.
We didn’t do any significant climbing but relaxed at our comfortable camp near Adams Col, investigating the G of E from Baker Peak in the East to near Mt Barlow in the West. We exited down Adverse Creek into the Perth where we developed an excellent two tent campsite on the TL above the crossing point of the upper Perth. Other parties had camped on the gravel right at the water edge; an interesting to say the least place to spent the night!
The harder days of the trip were the last two days; the long slog down the Perth to Scone Hut, with plenty of wading, pack lowering and some bush bashing all on the TL. Nobody had choppered in any spare kayaks for us to attack the Grade 5 waters in this part of the Perth. (This section is popular with expert kayakers.) The last day was just a standard slog out to the road and the instant hitching of a ride back to the Whataroa pub.
The Garden of Eden; an amazing place to get to, and a thoroughly recommended 10 or 12 day trip from the West Coast.
The six of us were Barry Scott, Alasdair Noble, Terry Crippen (Palmerston North); Pat Holland (Nelson); Conway Powell, Rod MacLeod (Dunedin).