Hi all,

We have just finished a successful trip from Whatoroa to Erewhon Station. We walked up the Whataroa and Perth Rivers for a couple of days, and then bunkered down for another wicked front to come over and fill the rivers with torrents of its tears. We did a recky up to Redfields stream from Scone hut as this was to be the beginning of the next day’s route up to the Garden of Eden over the Great Unknown. Unfortunately the weather looked not to improve too vastly the next day, and so we had little choice but to find a change of plan. Instead we headed up in deteriotating weather to camp in the headwaters of the Bettison valley. It was hard going terrain but a cool campsite – and some cool spectacles in the head of the valley – a deep cobalt blue glacial meltpool and big ice caverns over the stream.

The next day was a hard slog over Dennistoun Pass (roughly 2000m) into the Havelock catchment and Veil Biv. The descent was exciting – even at 11am there were loose snow slides on the steep parts. We just linked up rockbands and there wasn’t enough bulk of loose snow to be too worried about.

The next day, an even harder slog up the Haverlock Glacier and over Disappointment Saddle (again roughly 2000m). I think there is an agreement between saddles that they all be about 2000m. This is not a described route, but we deduced from Hut book entries in Scone Hut that a party must have found their way over here, so we decided to give it a go. Though a hard climb it is so good when the view explodes into your eyeballs on the other side. We murdered a block of chocolate. There were a few crevasses to negotiate on our way up to this one, and some quite steep terrain to sidle/descend on the other side. We took some good notes on the route should anyone need them. By the way, we believe this saddle is named for the reason that it is soo close to the Garden of Eden that you can almost spit across a schrund at them, but that is the problem, there is a big schrund under Schrund Peak that blocks both the way and the view. And yes, at this stage we were a little disappointed that we might not make it to the gardens.

So, this put us at McCoy Hut, as Rion discovered. We were tired, and the next day it was raining, so we went nowhere and boy it felt good. Fiiiinally, Paul on the other end of the mountain radio gave us our weather window. A weird South East flow for three or four days at least was the first sign of a seasonal change from the cycle of fronts it seems we have been running with this whole trip. Yus we weren’t walking out yet we were going to the Gardens! We walked up the Perth Col route (via Colin Campbell Glacier and Wee McGregor Glacier) in complete white out – probably 20-30m tops. We could see lots of white, and not much else, but at least the winds were OK. Nav was a cool challenge and all the tricks were pulled out – pace counting even! We pitched West of Baker Peak, knowing we had made the Gardens but lacking the visual proof! Anton set about paving the garden path outside the tent with schist from a nearby rockband. We spent a cosy night and woke up to clear splendour (and yes we did end up where we thought we did). All who are reading should come to this place – yes it is just a lot of ice… but the surrounding peaks are covered in huge icefalls and crevasses displaying a real sense of power, yet the huge white plateau itself sets more of a calm mood, and it’s just a surreal place to be. You are at 2200m and the views of the Alps stretches a long way. Speaking of the surreal power of the place… we did manage to loose Anton into a schrund on the way up below Baker Peak. His whole body just disappeared in a flash, and yet I felt not the slightest tug on the rope… he just “appeared” back out again saying, “hmmm there’s a tad more than 3m depth in that one.” Spooooky.

We spent the morning on Baker peak and wandering around the Garden of Eden, eating the forbidden fruit (yes that’s right a gorgeous green ripe apple mmm) before starting back down the Perth col route late morning. The reason being (for Rion J ) the weather was due to become unsettled with more low cloud and whiteout. We had already stretched our food with the detour over the divide via Dennistoun and Dissappointment and couldn’t afford any issues with the multiday ambiguous route down onto the lyall glacier. Some more time spent in the gardens/surrounding peaks would have been great, but we are really thankful for an awesome ten days in the hills and were out with a meal to spare. A few photos will hopefully follow.

Cheers, Andy and Anton