We had planned a final tramping trip for the season for a long weekend in late April. Despite having just closed on the house, with hut and boat reservations made we decided to take a break from our ever growing to-do list at the house and spend a final weekend in the mountains before winter arrived. The plan was to spend a few days hiking a loop in Nelson Lakes National Park, starting with a visit to Lake Angelus. We had previously attempted to visit this area in early spring and had spent a couple of very cold, wet days hunkered down in the hut, thanks to some unexpected late season snowfall.
Leading up to our trip, the weather for much of the South Island was highly changeable. The forecast for Nelson Lakes National Park didn’t seem too bad and so we met our water taxi early on Saturday morning at the Lake Rotoroa jetty.
As we made our way across the lake, the clouds hung low in the valley, but the water taxi driver had the same weather report as us, and thought that the weather should clear. As we unloaded onto the dock at Sabine Hut at the far end of Lake Rotoroa, we caught sight of a rainbow across the bay. Taking this as a good sign, we shouldered our packs and started to make our way up the steep track towards Mount Cedric.
The dense bush in this area extends all the way down to the lake shore, and so we immediately found ourselves climbing a very steep track through the forest. With no breaks in the trees, it was hard to gauge our speed or the rate at which we were ascending, although at times we needed to use our arms to pull ourselves up the steepest sections, using the tree roots as steps. It is hard to capture quite how steep this section of trail was in a photo.
Eventually the trees started to thin, and we found ourselves at the bush line. Unfortunately, the weather hadn’t cleared and as we peered out from the shelter of the trees, all we could see was heavy cloud. Luckily the visibility was good enough that we could see at least the next couple of track markers ahead of us and so we started to make our way up towards the ridge that would take us into Lake Angelus basin.
We climbed through the slippery, wet Tussock grass for a while, before the vegetation gave way to loose rocks. Not long after we left the shelter of the trees the wind started to pick up, and the rain began to fall in earnest. As we continued along the ridge, it was all we could do to stay on the track in places, we were constantly buffeted by strong winds which would roar up the mountain side. We knew that this route should have given us great views, but all we could see was the next marker in front of us and a couple of feet either side of the trail. Eventually, we dropped down into Lake Angelus basin, and picked up the familiar trail around the lake towards the hut. After warming up and attempting to dry ourselves and our gear out, we were able to relax in the hut listening to the wind and rain howl outside.
The next morning, we were treated to a beautiful sunrise from the deck of the hut, but were surprised to see that once again we had received a heavy dusting of snow overnight!