- Time
- Granity Pass Hut to car park via Lookout Range, 12-14hr
- Grade
- Moderate
- Accom.
- Camping; Granity Pass Hut, 12 bunks
- Access
- From the end of Owen Valley East Road, off SH5
- Map
- BR23, BR24
Nick Groves plans a quiet trip into Kahurangi National Park, but finds in the warm weather of summer, quiet is hard to get
Mount Owen is a complicated little mountain, which is probably the reason I keep going back to lose myself amongst the intricate bare rock outcrops and softer herb and flower-filled basins. No two trips are ever the same with new corners awaiting discovery and limitless possibilities for getting lost, or at least a little misplaced from time to time. This exploratory approach to tramping allows for an element of the unexpected to creep in, and any adventure worth its salt should always include a degree of uncertainty. It was time to stretch the legs and head away into the unseasonable sou’westers sweeping up the South Island. The prospect of overcrowded huts and busy tracks over the holiday period begged for an escape to somewhere less well trodden. Mt Owen is a justifiably popular destination, but sufficiently extensive and varied to avoid the crowds, or at least so we thought. The easiest and quickest approach to reach this limestone summit, which at 1875m is the highest point in Kahurangi National Park, is from the Wangapeka Valley to the north of the range. This, however, is an even further drive from Lyttelton so with plans of a quiet trip, and to see in the New Year on top of Mt Owen, Marie and I set off for the southern side via the Owen River valley. The large number of cars parked in the field at the start of the track up valley suggested that even this side was ‘occupied’. Maybe they’d already trekked over to the north? Bulmer Creek offers an interesting route up and through the lower fortifications that surround a lot of the Mt Owen massif, and having been this way some seven years previous, I guessed it would all come back to me. Apart from initially overshooting the actual start of Bulmer Creek and heading up towards Sunrise Ridge (to be explored another time), mostly this was the case, although pink ribbon markers led us on a wild goose chase at one point. The trail from the narrow and impassable waterfall at the head of the Lower Bulmer Creek was more obvious than on my previous visit, and before long we had crawled along the rightward leading ledges to the well-known ‘ladder pitch’. Here, a well-anchored caver’s ladder is conveniently draped over a particularly steep section of polished limestone bluff, and soon we were swinging our way up the final obstacle to easier ground. After all the excitement, the gentle track under the canopy of beech trees that leads up to the small lake was a breeze and we looked forward to a picturesque camp in this natural rock amphitheatre. An orange tent greeted us as we approached the lake, then another, then several more as it soon became apparent that we had reached Tent City at Bulmer Lake. Of course, it clicked straight away that our ‘road less trodden’ passed above some of the finest cave systems in the land and our trip coincided with an annual caving camp. [caption id="attachment_4127" align="aligncenter" width="800"]
