Ruahines tramp - Alice Nash Heritage Lodge, Iron Gate Hut, Triangle Hut

Trip: Alice Nash Memorial Hut; up to Tunupō then over the tops to Irongate Hut; daytrip to Triangle Hut; and out.

Party: me and Janine

Notes: Tunupō and tops is easy navigating but a particularly hard descent at the end of the day. Triangle Hut track is poorly and misleadingly marked in places - particularly the starting track out of Irongate Hut and as you cross the unnamed creek at the beginning of the 'detour' track.

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 It's never a good start to your weekend when you find that rats have been through your pack.

Friday morning was supposed to be 'grab my pack, put my gear in it and run for the bus'. Instead it involved hoses and nappysan and scrubbing brushes. Luckily I could work from home and use my commuting time as pack washing time instead. 

Our rat traps at home have been spectacularly unsuccessful, but I've discovered that leaving a backcountry meal in the bottom of your pack is a great way to lure in rats to eat it and make a mess of your pack. The only "luck" I had was to leave my pack open so the rats wandered in rather than chewed their way in.

Oh well.

3pm saw Janine and I on the road, Janine driving and me finishing my workday on Teams with my headphones on. Our mission was to explore Irongate Hut in the Ruahines. I'd been there many years before - but as a quick there-and-back for the day on the easy river track. There was a brand new hut there now. There was an intriguing ridge above. Lots to do and explore. 

Traffic was slow and Google recommended SH2 for us. Was it worth it? Not sure. But it took us five and a half hours to get to the road end. Peterson Road with the farmer's passive-aggressive and unhelpful signs on the gates came into view. (Top tip: there are two gates - the one on the right fork with the 'private property go back' signs is the wrong one, and the one on the left fork with 'no dogs, shut the gates, keep to the road' signs is the correct one).

Now we had one DOC hour's walk to get to Alice Nash Memorial Hut in the dusk. Could be daunting. But the track was very easy (pretty well a 4wd track) and 30 min later we arrived at an empty hut.

At 11pm a family arrived - and we found later that Dad had left his pack behind in the panic to get away. He had turned around and driven back to Wellington, and made it back to the hut by 2am. I can completely sympathise and what a mission to keep the trip on track.

Saturday morning dawned. Today was going to be hard and we weren't totally sure what to expect. Our plan was to head up a track to Tunupō (the peak above Alice Nash hut) and then follow a route along the ridge to another track that drops down to Irongate Hut. We knew it was going to be hard, just not sure how hard.

We kept to time for the first 3 DOC hours to Tunupō (1568m altitude). Beautiful beech forest gradually changed to scrub and then to alpine tussock.   The track was well maintained and had a nice gradient. We celebrated Janine's birthday on the way with a birthday cake - a brownie with a burning twig rammed into it. 

Plenty of traps - quite a few stoats in them too

Bush turning into scrub

Happy birthday Janine

Soon we'd reached Tunupō's summit - a weather station, a 'travelling rock' and CLAG. I swapped out my cotton 'fabric of death' T shirt for merino and my parka. It was windy and misty but not unpleasant.

Tunupō Top

Jackets out

Bleak but spectacular

Tops navigation was okay. We took a couple of wrong turns, but the map and compass pointed us back on the correct ridgeline. Okay, quickly followed by verifying where we were on GPS. I had not brought enough water so refilled from a somewhat greenish tarn to Janine's consternation. Oh well, 24h later there were no adverse symptoms so I'll call that a success. 

What could go wrong

After about 2 and a half hours of tops travel we were happy to pick up the Irongate hut descent track. This was tough. We were both tired by now, and this steep tricky descent needed a lot of concentration. Every step was around roots, onto slippery gravel and clay, and we were one bad foot placement away from ankle damage and tumbling falls. That also meant far more exertion as there was no rhythm in our descent; every step was stop start. 

At long, long last the track flattened and the brand new hut came into view. We both collapsed onto the picnic table outside, and recharged on soup. I was glad that was the hardest day! 

The hut was cheerfully full, with people making room for each other. The Alice Nash family from last night. A big party of 8, mostly blokey tramping buddies but one of whom had brought his bewildered family along (which was definitely not a good plan). Two older women. Three army engineers - one of whom who had built the new hut! He had brought in two mates to show it off to them and had great stories about the logistics and work needed to get such a great hut assembled in the middle of no-where.  

It was one of those hut evenings that's great fun - lots of people from many and varied backgrounds all cheerfully coexisting and swapping stories.  

I chose to bed down on the deck outside to keep out of a hot noisy hut, and had a great sleep.

Sunday morning I was up at 7 for coffee and a ... lunch wrap. My food supply is disorganised! I have enough but it's a bit weird and lacking in breakfast items. I tried some of Janine's chocolate porridge. It was terrible. 

We started late today because it's a short, there-and-back to Triangle Hut Nice to be travelling with just one pack between us with daytrip stuff in it.  Our plan is to follow the Oroua River but take a track up and over a saddle to cut out a big long bend.  

The track started beside the river with handy orange markers - that soon disappeared and left us stranded on a high terrace above the river. We scrambled down the terrace and made it back to the river to find more triangles on the other side of the river with a mysterious 'Triangle Hut (via detour)' sign pointing us the way. (In hindsight - the "detour" they mean is detouring away from the much longer river travel route).

We happily wandered along this nice track but as we crossed the unnamed tributary creek a few hundred metres in, the orange triangles faded out again. But I sighted a home-made red marker on the other side of the creek so off we followed it. Up a brutally steep and difficult razorback spur bushbash. Janine didn't complain, much. I was still looking out for markers and eventually saw some - on the other side of the creek, far below. Oh. We were supposed to cross the creek some distance upstream it appears.

Nothing to do but carry on. The spur flattened out but remained a razorback with steep drops on each side. Eventually though we sighted triangles and the tracks rejoined. Whew.

Now we were back on the 'real' track, life was good. The track was nicely formed, quite steep but easy enough travel through wonderful beech forest. It was a huge contrast with yesterday afternoon and made me realise that it wasn't just that we were tired - the descent yesterday was properly technically tricky. Soon enough we'd made the top, headed down the other side and reached the river.

I confidently turned right and headed off downstream - but Janine knew better and upstream we went. This is a really beautiful valley and mostly easy river travel. Some swift currents to cross though. I took Andrew's advice and found myself a stout stick to help. I'm generally ornery of walking poles but river travel is one place they really come into their own - both for stability over boulders and help when crossing through faster flowing water. 

After what didn't seem to be much time at all, the Rangiwahia track turnoff suddenly lurched into view followed quickly by Triangle Hut itself, nestled in the trees. What a nice hut. Old and rustic but fixed up nicely on the inside. It'd be a great place to stay. 

Pulling out the stones from my boots!

Three trampers turned up as we had lunch on the front porch. They'd come down from Rangiwahia and were planning to stay here at Triangle. 

The trip back was nice and quick and easy. We arrived at the turnoff in half the time we expected so it was quite a surprise. The 'detour' track was equally uneventful. We carefully found the right way to go at the end. It was still quite hairy on this side of the creek. I think there's been a washout or slip and the track becomes vague and hard to follow. We ended up taking a bearing and bashing to the part of the track we knew.

We were also forewarned about finding how to get out of the river and back to the last of the track to Irongate Hut. This was still hard and frustratingly misleading. A random oversized orange triangle on the river shore went no-where. Eventually a small triangle that you'd miss if you weren't actively searching for it led us up to the riverside.   

Times like this I wish I had a small claw hammer to move triangles around and make life easier for future trampers.

We were back at Irongate around 4pm, tired but not exhausted like yesterday. It was just us and the Alice Nash family at the hut, but more people steadily arrived and the hut became cheerfully over-full again.

Dinner was backcountry Nasi Goreng - bland and tasteless the last time I had it, but some added chili flakes gave it just the flavour it needed. I'm going to carry spice with me every tramp from now on!

 

While our hut mates chatted and caroused, both Janine and I tiredly read and then were asleep very early.

Monday was a nice straightforward day. Walk out the river track (around 4 hours) and go home. The river track was a nice easy grade - it did have a few ups and downs in it though, going over spurs and down into gullies. The unoccupied Alice Nash Memorial Hut was a welcome sight. At the roadend, Janine tossed me the car keys and carried on walking down the road - her strava log was just a few hundred metres off 40km so she wanted to click it over to a full 40km!

A familiar humpback bridge over the river between Alice Nash and the road end

What a great long weekend that was. The tops were tough. There was some navigation to do, both expected and unexpected (along with the most actively misleading orange triangles I've found in a while). Tramping in the Ruahines is always great and worth the extra drive.

You have to finish with a Deer Museum venison burger if you can.