Trip Photos

Castle Hill in background on ascent

Lights of Christchurch on top at midnight

Summit of Torlesse, with lights of Chch in background

Trip Report

Mt Torlesse night trip 24-25 July 2010 [Nocturnality is an animal behaviour characterized by activity during the night and sleeping during the day.]

The “three wise men” left Christchurch at 4pm on a Saturday afternoon to climb Torlesse at night. We stopped at Springfield and emptied the pie cabinet on our way to our trip just before the shop closed (usually ctc does that on the way back from a trip, but we needed something to fortify ourselves). We parked at the base of Porters Pass, and after experimenting with our cameras in the dark, we found the optional high track route (that we didn’t know existed, and bypassed the much easier river bed) and got to the Kowhai Hut before 8pm. We jettisoned our overnight kit at the hut and set off up to the summit, hardly needing to use our torches since the moon rays illuminated the ridgeline with sufficient light. We made slow but steady progress up the ridgeline, being fortunate to have the moon peeking out and reflecting Castle Hill on our left. However, high cloud ended up obscuring the full effect of the moon, but we still had enough light not to necessitate the use of torches till we reached the summit just before midnight. The lights of Christchurch could be easily seen, and we saw Ashburton and numerous other oases of lights on the Canterbury Plains. Looking westward, we saw the lights of the snow groomers on Mt Hutt and several of the Craigeburn Range ski-fields. There was not a breath of wind, apart from the occasional blasts that were emitted discretely and promptly followed by some pungent fragrance….This occurred quite frequently, and I wonder whether this was a side effect of night tramping…the verdict is still out… Having taken 4 hours of farting around to ascend, we put the foot on the gas pedal and descended in half the time, so by the time Thomas and I got back to the hut at 2am, Dayle had already eaten and was in his sleeping bag. We slept in til 10am, then made an (unsuccessful) attempt to empty Springfield once again of pies.

We really enjoyed the trip, and were fortunate to have near perfect conditions to try out night tramping in near full moonlight, where the views are similar, but more in black in white and lacking in defined details.

Nocturnals: Thomas Matern, Dayle Drummond, Antony White (Leader & writer)

-- Uploaded by Antony White on 25 July, 2010