Lake Angelus Hut to Mt Cedric or Sabine Hut?

I'm sure you could. I'm not sure where the best views are from but I'm sure they're from the top or near the top not half way down! We went a little way along that track from Angelus when we were there but turned back because of a very strong westerly (?) wind coming from that side. The views were already stunning though. If you spend 2 nights at Angelus there are other trips you could do too, such as Mt angelus or sunset saddle, or just Lake Angelus and hinapouri tarn are nice to spend time at.

Thanks for that Chris1. A couple of different people recommended day trips to Mt Angelus or Sunset Saddle from the hut, but neither had suggested Mt Cedric, which is partly what got us wondering why it wasn't a favoured day trip. Maybe your experience with the high winds is part of the answer.

A swim or a paddle at Sabine Hut may do the trick. It's too cold to swim at Lake Angelus and/or at Hinapouri Tarn.

If you plan to swim at Sabine Hut (which you probably don't, as the point of your question was to avoid going down there), be aware it is a hideous spot for sandflies and wasps. When we were there (Feb a couple of yrs ago) the ground crawled with wasps (one per square foot) and the sandflies swarmed as bad as I've seen anywhere. I hear DOC were trying to do something about the wasps, but the DOC guy we talked to seemed to think it was just a couple of hives around the hut, where in fact they were also bad for a couple of hours toward speargrass hut.

From memory, both sandflies and wasps were well-behaved when I was there two years ago. Also spent about an hour by the lake without a problem.

Perhaps it was 3 or 4 yrs ago that I was there; also being mid Feb it was probably the height of the wasp season. But perhaps DOC since managed to clear them out (I hope so). (Sorry this forum has got very off topic!)

As you pointed out Chris1 we don't intend to go to the Sabine Hut. Nevertheless, your information about wasps was useful to us in that it implies they are not a problem on our proposed route. Thanks for that. Dztramping, from your comments you have been to both the Sabine Hut and Lake Angelus. If you have done the track between them we would be interested to hear how far along it you need to go to get the best views. Cheers.

It is a little misleading to think of Mt Cedric as a mountain. It is really only the end of a ridge. You would probably get good views from the track between Angelus Hut and Mt Cedric as soon as you climb out of the Angelus basin and pass through the dip in the ridge so that you are overlooking Lake Rotoiti. At that point you are actually higher than Mt Cedric anyway. For the best 360 degree views the idea would be to get to the top of Mt Angelus. This is an easy scramble and it would only take about an hour from the hut to the top. And even if you don't getthat energetic, Angelus is a great place to blob out. A circumnavigation of the lake is a good little excursion too. The track from Sabine Hut to Mt Cedric is a good one and has an easy graded zig zag. Last time I went up there I decided to pace myself. I started slowly and kept going steadily and slowly and didn't stop until bushline. That made the climb relatively painless, which was good.

Thanks Pmcke. That sounds like very useful information. My motivation for tramping is firstly to keep my wife happy and secondly to get great mountain views. From your post it seems like the climb up Mt Angelus should top the views along the Mt Cedric ridge so we'll probably do that. We can then toss up whether to descend down the Cascade track or go along the Mt Cedric ridge as well and spend another day at Lake Angelus Hut.