Powell Hut - 8/8/26
Originally billed as trip to Powell with “hopefully a chance to see some snow”, the weather in the preceding week played its part, in that we had a good snow fall early in the week, with some beautiful clear days. Unfortunately, this ended and with the “shabby” forecast for the day of the trip, the desicion was made to move to a non-traditional Saturday departure.
Saturday morning was the first of the week without sub zero temperatures, which made for a pleasant start. Subsequently we left the Mt Holdsworth car park at 9am, hoping that the predicted rising cloud base, low rainful, and low wind speeds would eventuate.
There were few cars at the car park when we left, and only one other name in the intentions book at the lodge from that morning. We stretched our legs and began the warm up along the flat section of the track, and since we hadn’t all tramped together it was a chance to get to know each other prior to the start of the ascent.
We climbed up to Rocky lookout in about 45 mins, so quite a quick pace for a trip initially floated as a slow tramp. There was at this point no wind, and it was relatively warm for an August morning.
Carrying on up the track we were at Pig flat and having a morning tea in the sunshine at the heli pad at 10.30am. The breeze had picked up by now coming over the ridge requiring windproof layer to be added . We stopped briefly at Mountain house shelter to prepare for the next section of climb at 11am.
This second section of climb saw small patches of snow on the track at about 900m of altitude, though it was sparse except in a few area’s where it had iced over, this caused no real problems. By the time we reached the first set of long steps, some of the icy patches caused us to be slightly more cautious. We came out of the bush line to wonderful views, unimpeded by the cloud base that had
dutifully lifted to about 1300m, whilst it was breezy, it was not raining! While we scanned the view into the Waiohine valley from the Sentinal, we met a former member of the club, Richard, who was making his way down from Powell already.
We passed a couple more early starters in the last 10 minutes before reaching the hut at just after midday. It was the first visit to Powell for Peter, so he had a look around, casting an architects eye over some of the building, and enjoying the views over the Wairarapa. We were soon joined by a group of VUWTC members, (with a “black sheep” Massey student!) who planned to get to Holdsworth summit before heading back down.
After a longer lunch break, in which Josh boiled up a second cuppa for us all, we readied ourselves for the return trip, leaving at just before 1pm.
The descent was initially a bit slower, thanks to the icy conditions particularly on the steps, though we managed these without incident. We met alot of people coming up the track, most heading to Powell for the night, though a few on day trips like ourselves.
We passed Mountain House and the wind died off, and layers were removed. After passing Rocky lookout we decided to use the track down to the loop track for the last bit of descent, rather than continue on the Gentle Annie, as neither Jacqueline or Peter had been this way before. Arriving on to the loop track we struck out for the car park, arriving at 3.30 pm.
Thanks to Josh, Jacqueline, and Peter for their company on the trip.
Conrad ( leader and scribe)
