Kehu Peak via Upper Travers, Nelson Lakes, April 2023.
March 2022: We had been planning on an attempt at Kehu for a while. A quick drink in the pub, some careful divvying of gear and meal prep, flights booked, and we were ready to go. A day later, two of the team were confined to quarters due to being close contacts. The rest were concerned about their ability to get home should they be exposed. So ended the attempt on Kehu.
Cut to April 23, another sneaky beer in the pub, and a new plan was hatched. Due to the unreliability of the ferries, we flew Sounds Air to Blenheim and used a trampers’ transport company to get us to Nelson Lakes. Our van was right on time and we were soon in St Arnaud. We crowded into our spacious accommodation, dropped our gear and made a bee line for the Alpine Lodge. Three members of the team were so lost in conversation that they became lost in actuality and wandered right past the lodge. Several pizzas and a few pints later we had a plan for the following three days.
Hamish, the friendly ferryman had kindly agreed to take us across the lake at 7:15am. After a quick round of juggling eftpos cards and with return time booked we were on the water. The lake was mirror smooth, but it was still early, so we were rugged up warm.
Out of the boat, we set off past Lake Head Hut, briefly meeting a couple of residents. On the way up to John Tait, we were set upon by a number of friendly toutouwai who desperately wanted the bugs that we were disturbing.
We reached John Tait Hut in good time — approximately four hours in. Here we enjoyed a quick lunch. Nina impressed us all with her dehydrated, freezer-aged hummus and we met a friendly fisherman before setting off again. From here the track starts to rise and Jack’s fitness came to the fore. He was positively bouncing up the slightly steeper slopes while the rest of us lagged along behind. Taking a wrong turn, we stumbled down to Travers falls, which was lovely, but we had to retrace our steps.
Upper Travers Hut soon appeared from the bush. We quickly dumped our gear in the hut, claimed beds and some of us set off for a quick reccy of the best route towards Kehu. We clambered up steep scree and onto tussock, looking down upon the hut buried in the bush. Going was reasonably easy with occasional loose rocks, and we quickly ascended ~250 metres above the bowl. Tom found a large boulder to stand on (his favourite boulder) and enjoy the landscape. While scouting, we admired point 2096 above the hut and agreed that there would be some terribly interesting winter routes up there if we had the inclination to return later in the year.
Although we had a pretty good route in mind for the morning, we decided to explore another route slightly south, following a stream to see if it was any better. On this route, there were some lovely slabby paths, and the lack of scree was quite appealing. However, when we went to cross the stream, Shaun demonstrated how slippery the rocks were. While crossing immediately above a waterfall, his feet flew high into the air. His hiking pole joined in the fun and was airborne for a moment before arcing gracefully over the edge into the waterfall below.
Fortunately, Shaun did not follow the pole over the edge.
The pole, now slightly beyond reach and trapped in a stream of water, was further victimised when it was pelted with rocks by the team trying to free it from the water’s clutches. A well-placed rock knocked it free and with pole back in hand, we continued down.
The trail was still good despite the slipperiness of the rocks near the river. We kept a respectful distance, only crossing a few more times — each without incident. However, not long after, we hit the scrubby bush. With no way around it, we were bashing through shrubs and rocks, slipping into hidden holes, and occasionally being impaled by hidden Spaniard grass. We pushed on through, occasionally finding small streams to add to the difficulty. We finally reached the track on the south side of the hut and were all quite confident that our initial route up the scree was the better option for the morning.
Returning to the hut, we found that we had the place to ourselves. Upper Travers was as lovely as ever. However, it was the end of the Te Araroa season and the facilities are showing the pressure of the sheer number of through-hikers. Nina rehydrated the curry that she had made for us and we ate by the light of LED lamps. By 8pm, we were abed and sleeping.
We awoke to a still cool morning. This is when disaster struck! Nina had been up all-night coughing and with a fever. As such, she made the difficult call to stay behind and retreat to John Tait to set up and start rehydrating the evening’s dinner.
After devouring a quick breakfast, we bade Nina farewell and were soon scrambling back up the scree slope as the light slowly broke over the mountains. We quickly passed our highest point from the day before and carried on up to a large step where we found a perfect tussocky bivvy spot beneath Begley, complete with running water! Here the trail flattened out for a period and we were treated to some very enjoyable rock hopping. We carried on up the valley towards the massive scree slope under Kehu.
We took a moment for a snack and water break before embarking up the scree. We assessed our two options for accessing the Northwest face and agreed to make for the saddle rather than scramble up the gut.
The scree was everything scree promises to be — small stones that take you two steps back for every step up; big stable-looking rocks that enjoy transporting climbers back down the mountain; and occasionally, boulder islands, on which one can pause in some comfort and catch their breath. The team spread out to try to avoid fall lines. Half of us traversed the smaller rocks in the centre to get to the slabs and the other half hugged the cliff line.
Our aerobics were rewarded as we swiftly ascended. We eventually hit a line of slabs which made for lovely gentle scrambling up to the red rock on the northern face of Kehu proper. We stopped for a quick snack and discussed our route options.
The North face looked as though it would require ropes. To reduce the number of pitches required, we scrambled out towards the Northwest face. On this face, we found great rock and many good stances so we could easily scramble without much risk.
We soon found ourselves on the final ridgeline. There were a few small patches of snow left from earlier in the week; a lot of loose rock, and drops on both sides. The day was still young, so we decided to put up a rope along this final section. Once the rope was in place, everyone prussicked across. Another 15 metres along a wide section of ridge and we were at the summit!
Looking down the route we had scrambled, it quickly became apparent that downclimbing was unappealing. We still had plenty of time and lovely weather, so we decided to set up an abseil. We found a lovely large flake of rock, looped a cordelette and said goodbye to a carabiner.
Each of us in turn abseiled down the slope, careful not to dislodge the piles of loose rock. Those of us at the top heard a few yells from down below, but could not discern their meaning. The rope was unweighted and the next person would begin their descent. I went last, upon reaching the base of the abseil, I had it pointed out to me that a loose rock had been dislodged above one of the ropes. It had crashed down onto the rope and caused a rather substantial coreshot! Embarrassingly, I had abseiled right over it without noticing. Fortunately, the core was still in good condition and it had happily supported all six of us. We brought down the ropes and isolated the coreshot with an alpine butterfly.
While the last of us were abseiling down, the advance guard had been searching for a good rock to use for our next abseil station. With the coreshot isolated, the rope was safe. After a quick lesson in using a second prussik to move past a knot we each rappelled down the line to the top of the scree slope with no further dramas.
With the team down and the ropes stowed, we set off back down the scree. Golden hour hit just as we reached the tussock. As we progressed down to the hut and valley floor, we experienced the Travers Range in all its glory. We followed our route back down and were soon at the hut. We found it much more populated than when we had left it — with walkers having arrived from both directions. We repacked our sleeping gear, and we were off down towards John Tait hut. The light soon faded completely, and we were left navigating by headlamps. Fortunately, it’s a fantastic trail and we had little problem picking our way down the valley.
We made great time and pretty soon, the lights of John Tait appeared. Nina had the fire roaring and the curry that Jack had prepared rehydrating happily.
The trip out was mostly uneventful, we split into a number of teams and due to taking slightly different routes, managed to change the leading group without seeing one another. When crossing the swing bridge, Nina managed to knock open her watch catch. The watch plunged towards the river below, but to our amazement, Nina plucked it from the air with lightning quick reflexes.
We trickled down to Lakehead hut and set up at the picnic table. However, the local bees and sandflies were rather protective of the table and forced a hurried retreat to the vestibule of the hut while we snacked and waited for the agreed time to meet Hamish.
After crossing the lake, we returned to Alpine Lodge for celebratory pizza and beverages. On the approach, Ian had mentioned that he was getting some blisters. However it was here that we learnt that his blisters had taken a significant chunk of the skin off of his heels! He had been toughing out the whole trip like a champion! After we had drunk the bar dry (a fault in their carbon dioxide supply may have had something to do with it), we jumped in our valet transport and were soon back at the airport for another calm crossing of the Strait in a tiny airplane.