Arrowsmiths - Day 1

We have been keen to head into the Arrowsmiths all year and now the avalanche danger has finally dropped thought it was time to check it out. This range at the head of the Rakia is just east of the divide and turns out its a good place to be in an nor wester. Its also the haunt of Methven Heliski as it offers big verts and plenty of steep skiing. We unfortunately didn't have a helicopter but that would take all the adventure out of it anyway.

Another slight drawback is Ed had an evening test so we didn't leave Christchurch until 8:30pm, we also had to stop pick up a pair of skis and cut some skins for them. Ed took a little while to get the hang of this so we arrived at the Cameron Vally road end at a casual 2am. Still no need to let that put us off, so up valley we head. Had done this walk once before in the dark and missed the track above the gorge which wasn't ideal. Keen to avoid making the same mistake I may have jumped the gun a bit heading up the hill (by about an hour actually, ops) our resulting hour of fighting the local foliage was possibly even worse than going through the gorge.

There is an easy track up the valley, this isn't it.

But this worked out great as we arrived at the hut in daylight like normal people. We then had a bit of a nap and unfortunately this sort of set the tone for the trip as our sleep patterns were thrown a little out of whack.

The head of the Cameron at dawn, the huts at the snowline.

The goal for the day was to ski Mt Arrowsmith, I knew it was a pretty quick climb via the South Cameron Glacier as I had done it before, so we got up at lunch time and were on our way by 2pm a really late or really early start? You decide. The downside of this approach was it was baking hot and the slush that the snow pack turned into made for though skining.

Some steep skining on the Carriage Way route to the South Cameron Glacier

This in turn meant we didn't hit the summit till sunset and with the snow getting its freeze on our plan to ski the Grand Gully off the top was looking a bit suicidal.

Continuing my knack of summiting at sunset, Mt Arrowsmith

So we settled for a ski from below the exposed bit. No photos as it turned into another of our night skiing adventures. Got my first experience of a nasty breakable crust and am still working on a technique to handle this. My current approach of catching a tail and face planting leaves something to be desired. Luckily the last few hundred meters above the hut had some sweet recrystallized powder so we got in some fun turns at the end. Back at the hut at 8pm for our double dinner life was good.

Ed approaching the Grand Gully on Mt Arrowsmith, next time...