The Paringa
February 2008
By Richard Davies
Just after Xmas, (Boxing Day even), Quentin Duthie and I from the section along with Jo Hoare and Bruce Galloway from the Canty/Westland section headed up the Paringa. After an easy evenings walk into the late Tony Condons hut we trudged up to Tunnel Ck in increasingly heavy rain. Noting that the Paringa bivy rock already had two in it we had the afternoon off and watched the Paringa rise, fall and rise.
The next day we were up before the Sparrows were farting and climbed steadily through the wet bush. We carried on past the rock biv and took the high route that climbs snowgrass, then rock and crosses numerous snowfields and lines of easy slabs towards Mt McCullaugh. By this stage the clag had come in and we debated turning around but decided to keep following the footprints of the pair from the rock (being Erik Bradshaw and Christine Ryan), eventually their footprints turned round and after pondering how we had walked past each other in the clag we pushed on up. You cross a notch in the ridge then traverse a ledge and snowfield on the Paringa side of McCullaugh before crossing another notch and descending the McCallaugh glacier. We tiptoed across the snowbridge over the schrund, and felt our way down in the clag (as a side note we looked at the route from the Solution range a few days later and with a clear view of our footprints from across the valley we could see that we managed to pick about the only line that would go on the glacier which was pleasing). We camped on some pleasant benches above Murdock Creek.
The next day we headed over to Marks Flat and saw Blair and Nicky at the airport biv, we pushed on to try and cross the Landsborough. We got down to a good crossing I have used previously but after a bit of mucking around decided it wasn’t for all of us. We had a day with some OUTC/OSONZAC folk who were doing some uni work from a camp on Toe Toe flat then took a spur directly up to Mt Solution sidling west near the top to save some climbing. A rough descent to the Clark followed before exiting via Zeilian Pass and the Moeraki. A neat trip.
After another weeks tramping in North West Nelson Quentin and I wanted light packs so headed up to Esquilant biv with the idea of scrambling up Earnslaw. Iced up rocks in the couloir (and a tight timeframe) put paid to that, so we headed back out and down to Fiordland. A nice overnighter nonetheless.
After a good thrash around Fiordland, Quentin and I joined Graham Bussell from the Wgtn Section, Eric Duggan from CNI and Emma Richardson from CUTC for a look at Arawhata country. We left Raspberry Flat late in the afternoon and made good quick time to Liverpool biv. Arawhata Saddle looked to have a disconcertingly small amount of snow on it, but we wandered up the next day to ‘have a look’. The Moirs route (climbing to the right (looking up) then cutting back left) was a hopeless proposition with an ugly waterfall and debris threatened slopes, so we climbed more or less directly up the centre on rock most of the way, only needing the rope for one short section with the rest being scrambles of varying difficulty. We got down to Arawhata rock for the night which is a neat spot, all the more neater after a vigorous scrub workout.
A couple of days took us down to Williamson flat and up the Joe to the Victor Creek bivy rock. A day of rain rescued us from ourselves and we enjoyed the rest. In the evening we went and found the rock bridge mentioned in Moirs and still very much in existance and very easy despite what some parties had told us. It’s worth finding, other crossings are reasonably ugly. We had glorious weather that befitted the glorious line that is Destiny ridge, however this season Destiny ridge was more Destiny church and “enough was enough” with the slopes cut off at the rock outcrop at 2080m. Rather than passing it on the Passchendale glacier side as per Moirs we found a 30m abseil on to a snowbridge required to get around it. We got as far as setting up the abseil but then decided with no guarantee that the rest of the route was open (from what we could see the slopes under Solution col looked very broken) and no safe way back on to Destiny ridge (and thus down) if it didn’t go we reluctantly turned around. Brian Tamaki might have gone for it.
The day got a bit crapper when we found the mountain radio was broken which meant we couldn’t find out whether the party we had heard in the vicinity of Whitbourn saddle was able to get through. With not enough food to try and fail again, and O’Leary pass not enticing us we reversed - and the good news was that the Joe and Arawhata were a lot easier and faster in reverse. There’s no question that if the river allows you should stay in it up the top of the ‘whata. We got from Williamson flat to the very top of the Arawhata in a comfortable day with barely a scratch from Twin Falls Creek onwards. From there it was a nice walk out via the Waipara and Matukituki saddles and the length of the West Matukituki.