Weekend 2003 This was a “medium” 3-day trip with the intention of having a leisurely adventure climbing Mt Tappy over QB weekend. Our group of 8 were mixed with most having done the AIC or an equivalent course and some other climbs in the past 2-3 years. We even let a token rock climber come along! We weren’t anywhere near Olympic class level but we were all adventurers. Access was pretty good, and we spent the 1st and 3rd days going up/down the Hodder River to stay in the Hodder Huts. Even though we had to cross the river 66 times on the way up it was never more than knee deep, and the sun was shining on a windless day. Paul was the 1st to slip over and got to wear the Alpine woolly jersey award. But not for long as yours truly had a spectacular face plant (well I wanted to keep my pack dry). It took us 6 hours to get to the huts. Sunday dawned clear but breezy with a 30-40 km/h westerly and we were on our way with a leisurely 7.30am start at sunrise. Two others from Wellington/Blenheim (Geoff and Quentin) joined us under their own steam. Paul returned early on after deciding it probably wasn’t a good idea to damage the pristine environment with a dose of his ‘flu. There was little snow to be seen so that the trail was easy to follow up Staircase stream and around and between the bluffs and semi-frozen waterfalls. In the upper valley the trail petered out in steep, slippery scree at the halfway point. But that was OK as we had a great time (NOT!) getting bluffed out and backtracking down 30-50m! One of our 2 rookies (Chris) decided at that point that was quite enough experience for one-day and returned. At 2300m we finally came upon some snow and out came the crampons, only to be stripped off when the snow ran out at 2600m as we acquired the main ridge. Yes folks, between us we carried 20kg of ice axes and crampons over 45km, to use them for less than 1 hour on 300m of snow where we could find it! 20% cover at best. It was now 12.45pm, we had climbed over 1100m from the huts and we still had an hour to go. The wind on the ridge was strong, 60-80km/h, difficult to stand in let alone climb. It seemed likely darkness would overtake us on the descent. At this point the climb changed from an adventure to a mission, all but one of us (Kate) dropped our packs and raced to the summit, bagging it in a 35-minute rush. The trip down was quick and uneventful, what took 6 hours to ascend was just 3 hours to return. A pretty cool day. Knocking back a few beers over dinner in Blenheim on Monday night was pretty good too. Stats: age range 30-50, 38% female, 63% parents, minimum T = 5.6C (summit). Team Members = Kevin Patterson (leader), Maria Cunningham, Kevin Martin, Tom Zink, Sean Kelly, Chris Kroger, Kate Smith, and Paul Clark. In addition Geoff Keey, and Quentin. 7 out of 10 summitted. New Zealand Alpine Journal 2003:
