Bristed Stream Circuit – Easter, 2012
It hadn’t rained for a while so it was an excellent time to do this trip. Bristed (Bastard) Stream has a reputation as being an unrelenting gorge-bash only for the stoic. Frank has entertained us with a tale of “Dayle’s Ledge” discovered on their ascent of the gorge in 1995. They’d encountered a rock pool with a strong current preventing upstream progress. Dayle had explored and exclaimed there was a ledge: it turned out to be a mere bead a few mm across and the rest of the party was skeptical of its usefulness for them as Dayle can scuttle across obstacles like a rat up a drainpipe. However each member of the party of 6 had been able to use it to reach across and bypass the pool. Without the ledge they would have been much challenged. Anyway Frank said gorges change with pools getting filled in by gravel and other places getting scoured out so I didn’t expect to see this famous ledge on our trip and he was right. It was gone but the story still does the rounds in the CTC.
In case of lingering patches of snow on White Col, we took our ice axes but only the 6 point crampons. Nothing worse than a sabotaged trip due to lack of essential equipment. We drove up to the Klondyke Corner road end on the true left on Easter Friday, a bit delayed by holiday traffic and set off at 11.30am. 10 other vehicles were parked there. I guess some of them were doing the 3 Passes Trip. Just as well we didn’t do the Pope Pass circuit we’d originally planned.
There wasn’t any water initially in the Waimak – a good portent for Bristed Stream. It was good to be in the Waimak again. I’ve been up and down this route at least 20 times so it’s like a dear friend to me. We stopped for lunch on an attractive patch of vegetation near where we crossed the Anti Crow. Further up this stream we could see a party of 3 also stopped for their lunch. They were using a much slower flood route so we passed them and left them behind further up the valley. After 3 ½ hours we got to Carrington Hut. There was a middle-aged guy with his daughter on the porch. I said hi and he just looked at me. Front country manners, I thought to myself and then he said “Honora Renwick”. It was an old tramping buddy, Mike Plug and his keen partner, Sheila. We have done some great trips with Mike. He had been on Frank’s foray up Bristed Stream. When he heard we were going there he chuckled and reminisced about “Dayle’s Ledge”.
We stopped for a snack and I enjoyed a coffee from Mike to help energise me to Barker Hut. Then we set off together up the pretty bush track to the now devastated White Valley from the Arthurs Pass 1994 earthquake. Along the way at my request, Frank pointed out the side creek to take to climb to the access notch that gains entry to Camp Spur to climb Mt Harper. At the Taipoiti junction, Mike and Sheila crossed, heading for Harman Pass where a party of NZAC members where camped, doing the 3 Passes trip. Mike and Sheila were dropping down into the Julia to do a trip from there over Taipo’s Breast and Bijleveld Col into Hunts Creek.
It didn’t look far to the end of the White but in actual fact it took us 4 hours to get there so we didn’t make it there till after dark at 7.30pm. We wasted a bit of time pussyfooting around a spur overlooking the ravine that needs to be crossed below the outcrop that Barker Hut sits atop. I think there’s been a bit of zealous overcairning and in the gloom we missed the right ones that lead to the foot track. Never mind, we dropped down to the ravine, crossing it easily and then I lead us up in the twilight directly to the track. Frank suspected very few people go this way!
As we gained the top of the outcrop, the basin was awash with an eerie glow of moonlight as the moon has just risen. Fortunately Barker Hut was empty so no-one to disturb. I’d been up here before in the dark with a party including 2 Himalayan women. One who had summitted Everest must have been a bit unfit as she collapsed near the hut. Our leader, Margaret Clark had managed this wee crisis in a text book fashion, giving us all jobs to do. She and I stayed with Bahendri Pal, placing her on my thermorest with sleeping bags over her, snuggled up to protect her from heat loss. Her tiny colleague, who she regarded as her personal sherpani, plonked Bahendri’s pack on top of her own and trudged up to the hut. I’d never seen such a physical feat but these women start carrying close to their own body weight in slightly younger siblings from a very young age so it’s really no surprise. The 2 other members of the party were instructed to go to the hut (which was very near) and make a cup of tea for Bahendri. After this, she revived very nicely.
