One Day Southern Crossing

The Southern Crossing is one of the most common crossings of the Tararua Ranges. It starts at Kaitoke, north of Upper Hutt, and finishes at Otaki Forks. The Southern Crossing covers 40km+ of rugged terrain, and much of the crossing is above the bush line. Aggregate elevation gain is around 2200m (7,200') or more. Hikers normally complete the trip in 2 days of eight hours or so, or even 3 days, but some people do the crossing in a single day. The notes and pictures below are from a one day crossing that I did on Saturday 10 February 2001.

I was quite tired after doing quite a few hard runs (including the Holdsworth-Jumbo trail race) over the previous two weeks, so I was fairly slow. Each year there is a race held over this course in early March. My time of 9:13:23 on this trip was more than twice as long as the race record of 4:36:21 set by Collin Rolfe in 1999. The Tararua ranges have some of the worst weather of all New Zealand mountain ranges, with rain for about 200 days per year, along with mist for up to 260 days total. I was fortunate to strike a brilliantly sunny day, but still encountered very strong winds.

The day seemed to start OK and we were on the trail by 7:30am. However, my legs were very fatigued and I was extremely slow on the climbs. Given the circumstances, I was reasonably pleased with my time of 3:41 to Alpha Hut. However, from Alpha Hut to Mt Hector the wind was very strong – probably gale force – at times one had to be almost down on all fours to prevent being blown off the ridge. I found this stretch particularly tough, with the wind often halting all forward progress. There are also some quite significant “undulations” along this ridge. It took a long 2:07 to get from Alpha Hut to Hector. I stopped just short of Mt Hector to take some photos, and then took another photo of the cross from closer up. The wind suddenly abated on the downhill from Hector, and it rapidly became too warm to keep the jacket on.

Mt Hector from the last "bump" before the summit	Looking back along the ridgeline from Alpha to Hector
The memorial cross on Mt Hector	View of Kime Hut descending from Field Peak

Field Hut appears from the bush

Made steady but slow progress to Kime Hut, and then on to Field Hut. Even on the downhills it was hard to get the legs working, but I slowly got them moving on the flats. I met two trampers at Field Hut who were very impressed with how far I had come in the day, but they informed me that the others had run through about half an hour before. After filling the water bottle, grabbing a sandwich and filling in the hut log book, I set off for Otaki Forks. There was quite a lot of good running after the hut, but I soon tripped on a rock, and brought my left hip crashing down on to a rock at the side of the trail. No serious damage, but I did have to pick a few pieces of debris from my sandwich. It was mainly downhill and good running the rest of the way to the Forks. I finally made it across the bridge at the Forks some 9:13:23 after starting.

This was an impromptu trip arranged over the Thursday and Friday before the trip. It was arranged at short notice from the Ridge Runners email list. Trip members: Cheryl Young, Richard Jennings, Nigel ?, Andrew Shelley, although I did the trip solo from Kime Hut to Otaki Forks.

Otaki Forks

From	To	Duration	Total
Kaitoke	Old Dobson's Hut	0:46:02	0:46:02
Old Dobson's Hut	Block XVI Track	1:33:58	2:20:00
Block XVI Track	Bull Mound Track	0:41:26	3:01:26
Bull Mound Track	Alpha Hut	0:40:14	3:41:40
Alpha Hut		0:08:53	3:50:33
Alpha Hut	Mt Hector	2:07:52	5:58:25
Mt Hector	Kime Hut	0:30:07	6:28:32
Kime Hut		0:10:40	6:39:12
Kime Hut	Field Hut	1:07:11	7:46:23
Field Hut		0:15:11	8:01:34
Field Hut	Otaki Forks	1:11:49	9:13:23

Food consumed: 1 banana, 2 powerbars, 3 powergels, 5 peanut butter & jam sandwiches