It was an honor to be invited on a 2 week hut mission base camping at the Lyall hut. We would have access to numerous options of potential mountains to snowboard. We had loosely set our eyes on climbing The Warrior which is a distinct peak in the Armoury Range. It’s one of the more isolated regions in a massive range that’s known for isolation. so it’s out there. Ryan and his friend Yossi took a helicopter to the hut while I decided to hike in the 20kms.
Canterbury
Craigieburn Traverse and Temple Basin Splitfest
Damian was kind enough to drop me off at the airport where I waited for John Blankenstein to arrive from Australia before meeting up with Chris Rayner and Pow and we stoked up for a overnight traverse of the Craigieburn Range over about 30kms and 10,000 vert going past 4 ski fields with an overnight stay at Mt. Olympus.
Fortunately I had a Licence to Chill pass so I was able to use the Nutcrackers to get to the top of Craigieburn but John and Pow had to climb the resort.
It had barely snowed throughout the season and we were almost 4 weeks into a drought but we made the best out of the situation.
Heading up to the Cameron Hut in the Arrowsmith Range
In early October I got the invite from Ryan Nicol to check out a zone based out of the Cameron Hut. There had been a bit of new snow and the weather wasn’t looking so good but the area looked to have lots of options. Soon we were driving from Otago into the Canterbury backcountry.