It is hard to overstate the thrill of starting a ski trip with a helicopter ride, especially one through the stunning mountains of the Southern Alps. Blinding white peaks flashed past the windows of the heli. While most of me was enjoying the view, a small part of my mind was wondering what would happen if the engine failed and we had to autorotate and make an emergency landing. There was nowhere remotely flat in sight.
Getting in
We had spent the morning waiting at Mount Cook Airport for the cloud to lift. At around 1pm, we had to decide whether to attempt to fly in. An aborted trip would be expensive. One of the pilots thought he had been able to see into the destination, the Cass Valley, while returning from the Tasman Glacier. The group decided to give it a go and, after loading in a white and orange Squirrel (Écureuil), we were soon following the delightfully named Gorilla Stream into the high alpine world.
There was still a lot of cloud in the lower valleys but, to our relief, the head of the Cass was indeed clear. We swooped into the valley and could soon see Lady Emily Hut perched on a snowy spur below us.
Our pilot, Toby, brought us in to land but, to my consternation, after attempting to settle on the ridge he took off again to find a flatter and less rocky spot. It took another couple of attempts, with quite a lot of sideways drifting, before Toby cut back the engine and we scrambled out. Within a couple of minutes, we were all lying on our piles of bags, skis and snowboards. The engine rose to a scream and then Toby and the helicopter were gone, leaving behind silence and the realisation that we had the entire snowy wilderness to ourselves.
The ski touring
Lady Emily Hut has two “wings”, each containing three bunk beds. We were booked into the South Wing but, luckily, although the North Wing had also been reserved, no one turned up and we were able to spread out.
As it was already after 2pm, we quickly put on our gear and headed up the valley southwest of the hut for a ski and an explore. There were no detailed avalanche forecasts and we were the first people into the area since fresh snow had fallen the previous day, so our guide, Petrouchka, was keen to get a sense of the snow conditions and avalanche risk.
(Thanks to Pet for this and several other photos.)
Our destination was Bad Decision Hut, which sits on the saddle at the head of the valley. Our routes for the three tours we did are shown in the map below.
The publicity for the tour, arranged by Wanaka Mountain Guides, said: “After a fun day of adventures, it is recommended to head to the Bad Decision Hut for a dram of whisky before heading back to Lady Emily.”
That sounded like a good plan to me. Unfortunately, the next sentence did not register until I tried to order some whisky a couple of weeks before the tour: “If this interests you, order before 30th June.”
Fortunately, one of our party, David, had ordered a bottle, so we were able to enjoy a sip of whisky in the shelter of the tiny hut.
We then skinned up to the small col north of the hut, from where we enjoyed some steep turns on good snow over an icy base.
Unfortunately, this meant we did not pass the hut again, so David’s whisky was left stranded there. The lower part of the descent included some breakable crust, which was difficult to ski with any elegance, followed further down the valley by traversing frozen debris from wet-snow avalanches. Even so, it was still an enjoyable descent, and it was the only skiing we did on the trip that was not on either fresh snow or lovely corn snow.
Pet cooked a tasty dinner with lots of vegetables. Remarkably, given our remote location we were served more vegetables in the hut than we would have been eating out in regular restaurant. Dinner was also a good opportunity to find out a bit about my companions. There’s nothing like three days in a confined space to get to know people. They were a nice group.
Petrouchka, our guide, was super-competent and calm, and managed to structure the days so that they were challenging but never epic. David was from Dunedin and had a wealth of skiing and outdoor experience. A keen hunter, he was able to identify all the animal tracks we saw, as well as leave me much more informed about the Himalayan tahr that roam the area.
Avi, a snowboarder (three of the five of us were skiers), was from the UK and had an impressive CV of extreme activities, including BASE jumping and wingsuit flying. He had also built up and sold a successful care-home company.
Finally, Marion was a French snowboarder on a three-week visit to New Zealand who was keen to experience some backcountry life. Calling her merely a snowboarder is something of an understatement. She was an amazing snowboarder and, on the couple of occasions when we reached steeper descents, she impressed us all with her graceful turns and skills.
The following day, we headed up the valley to the west, originally intending to complete a large loop back to the Bad Decision Hut, known as the Scorpion Loop.
Higher up, however, we found ourselves in the full glare of the sun. It was white-hot, and without a breath of wind. No amount of trying to ascend slowly could stop the sweat streaming down our faces, so Pet decided to change the plan and go “side-questing” from our high point, about three-quarters of the way up the valley.
This turned out to be a lot of fun. In the photo below Marion is heading down back into the valley we ascended the previous day in one of our side-quests.
Back at the hut, we had time for a picnic outside before the sun disappeared.
The air soon chilled but by then David had got the fire in the hut going and it was toasty, if somewhat fragrant, inside.
Our final full day at the hut again dawned fine and still, but this time we left at 7.10am. This was almost two hours earlier than the previous day, but not was not too early for one of the local keas to put in an appearance.
We were attempting the Scorpion Loop again, but our earlier start meant we almost reached the saddle leading into the next valley before it became really hot.
We put on boot crampons and walked for the final part of the climb, something that, as a climber, I feel very comfortable doing.
I would have worn them more often, as the surface beneath the fresh snow was frequently quite hard and we were sometimes slipping even when using ski crampons. However, as Pet requested that we also wear our ski helmets, while using ice axe and crampons – which make climbing in them really hot – I was glad that we didn’t have to do it for that long.
The view from the saddle, at 2360m around 900m above the hut, was worth the effort. Untracked fresh snow led down towards some ski tracks below. After digging a pit in the slope, pondering the results and giving a slab that she had cut around a few good thumps, Pet pronounced it safe and had the honour of laying down the first tracks.
It was a great descent, one of the nicest I have ever experienced. It was just a shame that it was over so quickly. The contrast between the slow pace of climbing on skis and the speed and efficiency of the descent still amazes me.
We traversed around to the Bad Decision Hut, where David was reunited with his bottle of whisky.
This time, we did not make the mistake of leaving it behind when we began our final descent to the hut. Before that, however, we completed a couple of short laps on the mellow slopes beside the col.
There we bumped into the first other skiers we had encountered on the trip, a group of nine or ten staying at Falcon’s Nest Hut, on the opposite side of the saddle from our hut.
Back at Lady Emily Hut, there were signs of other visitors and, later that evening, three lads arrived. They had walked up that day before heading off exploring the valley to the west. It made me realise how lucky we had been to have had the entire area to ourselves for the previous two days. I enjoyed a final few idyllic moments down by the stream below the hut where I had a wash and filled up a container for use later in the hut. (As well as collecting stream water, we’d also been melting snow.)
The presence of the other party meant that our accommodation became considerably cosier, with the five of us squeezed into the smaller South Wing. The only silver lining was that the larger stove and the space for drying stinky boot liners were located in the North Wing.
Getting out
Our attention now turned to how we were going to get out. Strong winds and snow were forecast overnight, and Pet had devised several extraction plans involving different possible helicopter routes. The final fallback was to walk down to the four-wheel-drive track in the bottom of the Cass Valley, where we would be met by Tim, the owner of Wanaka Mountain Guides.
We awoke to a fresh, newly whitened landscape around the hut. I came closer to injuring myself that morning than at any other point on the trip when I slipped on the wet snow and landed heavily on my backside while walking to the long-drop toilet, which was 10m or so from the hut, in my flip-flops.
The forecast lifting of the cloud did not materialise. At around 11am, however, Pet was told that Toby was on his way. We gathered all our gear into a pile and waited outside. It began to snow again and the cloud pressed down around us.
It seemed hard to believe that the helicopter could make it in, so it was with some relief that we heard the sound of rotors approaching from the valley below. Avi did a great job of capturing the the helicopter landing on video; I had my head down trying to avoid the blast of snow.
The landing and pick-up were very efficient, and we were soon in the air, heading south down the Cass Valley and out of the mountains. I could see Tekapo, where I knew Lillian was arriving at almost exactly the same time by bus from Christchurch. We continued around the southern side of the Gamack Range and back to Mount Cook Airport. This was a bonus, as it gave us a completely different view of the mountains on the flight out.
We touched down and unloaded. Before we had time to adjust mentally to being back in the flat world, we were saying our goodbyes and sadly the trip was over. But what a trip it was.
Special thanks to Petrouchka for being an excellent guide, Wanaka Mountain Guides for the overall organisation, and Toby of Southern Lakes Helicopters for his flying skills. (The dates of the tour were from 7-10 September,)
I’d also like to finish with a photo of a tahr. Although we apparently passed some on our flight out I couldn’t spot them. However, luckily I did see one, albeit made of metal, on the drive back to Tekapo at the Visitors’ Centre on Lake Pukaki.
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