Thrill Of The Chase: Mt Hutt

In the spirit of getting some more vertical meters under my belt for the High Five-0 Vertical Challenge, I chose to run Mt Hutt, as it is the highest peak within a close-ish drive of home.

Starting from the Te Awa Awa reserve, I followed the Scotts Ridge track to the ski field access road. The Scotts Ridge track zig-zagged up through rich green beech forest thick with the (slightly unsettling) sound of buzzing wasps. Tree roots gripped the trail, providing a ladder of toe holds for a fast ascent. Patches of swampy and boggy ground coated my shoes and legs in an early layer of mud. It turns out that I am a prolific face-sweater, and I felt as though my face was raining as I labored upwards.

After climbing through bush for quite a while, the track climbed above the snow-line, and I was running towards the quickly closing cloud base. The trail became littered with a sharp carpet of rocks, and wound over some land-slips, where the hill side had spewed its contents into the valley behind me. The higher I climbed, the more my view was restricted by the drifting cloud, and mostly I was running in a little bubble of trail, rusty alpine foliage and grey, wafting cloud. The wind was more of a breeze, and the air quite warm, so running was very comfortable.

It felt like I had only been running for a short while, when the trail met up with the ski field road. I dropped on to the gravel and continued my run upwards. The cloud had closed in so much at this point, that it took a little while to be sure that I was in fact still running up hill, and in the right direction. The road gradient, although steady, was not too steep, so I was able to keep up a good pace.

I climbed and climbed, the cloud sometimes so thick, that I could barely even see my feet. I had to keep a sharp ear out for vehicles, and all that passed were very courteous, often giving the thumbs up, or shouting encouragement. My plan had been to run all the way to the peak, but because of the almost zero visibility, I thought that it would be prudent not to head out onto the ski field incase I got disorientated.

Just as I was beginning to wonder if I would ever find the road's end, I broke through the top of the cloud into brilliant sunshine. The cloud-sea lapped at my feet, and around the next bluff, the sun-drenched peak of Mt Hutt revealed itself to me for the first time. I wasn't far from the base area of the ski-field. The road, cut right into the rock face, flattened out, providing a brief reprieve for the run to the deserted buildings and chair lifts.

Wandering through the deserted ski area which was almost completely bereft of snow was a little like visiting a ghost town. The buildings were peeling under the harsh sunlight, their roofs dripping as the recent dusting of snow trickled back down the mountain. I ran past the locked up ticket kiosk, and under the pylons of the Summit Six to re-fill my bladder from the pristine ice-melt stream.

Keeping an eye on the cloud below me, I headed up one of the rocky ski runs. Trails merged and diverged, and soon the base area and chair lifts were far below. I was running always upwards, the gradient steeper than the road, the rocks under my shoes, rather sharp. A final scramble up a loose gravel scree (two steps forward, one slither backwards) I emerged above nearly everything at the top of the field. A short jog through some snow and I was right at the top surrounded by antennae and solar panels. The view inland was amazing. Gravel-capped ranges draped themselves towards the jagged, snow defined ranges. The cloud behind me had only bumped against the first mountains, so I could see for miles in land, and deep down into the valleys below. In the distance I could see Middle and Big Mt Peel floating in the cloud sea, and closer, the summit of Mt Somers.

There was a slight breeze, and intense sunshine. I sat in the silence for ages drinking in the scenery.

Finally, as time was marching onward, I figured I should head back down. I flew back down the trails, imagining that I was gliding down snow, rather than skidding on stone. Back through the base-area buildings, the cloud was beginning to climb up into the field. The cloud was less dense for the run back down the access road, but the ground, if anything, felt harder. I could see stomach-churning steep drops disappearing down from the edges of the road. As the cloud parted and drifted above me, I looked back, and up to see the access road winding back up the mountain. It seemed impossibly high above me, and extremely reminiscent of the sort of road that leads, in fairy tales, to the haunted castle.

My quads were beginning to complain at the relentless down, and I was glad of the brief climb that led me back to the Scott's Ridge trail. I was below the cloud base now, and had my first views out over the plains. Back in the bush, and back to descending, I ran down and down. The tree roots and swampy ground providing my tired legs with more of a challenge on the descent than they had found them on the climb. Eventually the trail flattened out (mercifully), and I had a really good stretch before driving home to mow the lawns as a warm down.

This was a fantastic run, and a great opportunity to get some vertical meters under my belt, as well as some good miles into my legs.