Sudden Valley

Hi Clint, been a couple of years since I went up there with the tramping club but it's a mix of terrain. The gorge should only be attempted at normal flows and with no rain forecast. Multiple river crossings with some strong currents and a steep ascent up the Devil's Chute to avoid the waterfall. The upper valley is a doddle. Biv is a 2 bunker. I'm not sure taking your friends for their second tramping trip up Sudden Valley is quite the place but it depends on how good they are at walking up rivers and clambering over boulders etc. There's also the Hawdon River to cross at the start which has a strong current. https://flic.kr/s/aHsjQSy3hv

The Metservice is predicting a bit of rain (135mm at least) between now and Saturday so the Hawdon and other streams may be up a bit. Snowforecast isn't predicting as much rain/snow though - around 35cm of snow which is around 35mm of rain and yr.no are predicting around 40mm. You can check what's happening with the rivers via this site: https://www.ecan.govt.nz/data/rainfall-data/ Mt Byrne and Ranger Stream would give the best indication for the Hawdon and Sudden Valley respectively though. Regardless of this, I think it wouldn't be feasible to take your buddies into the Sudden Valley biv. It will take a couple of hours to drive to the road end at the Hawdon Shelter from Chch and then it would take people, who have only been tramping once, about 4 hours to tramp in so you could be walking in the dark which comes around 7pm which isn't nice for folks who've not done a lot of tramping and there is Sudden Valley stream to cross fairly close to the biv. The Hawdon Hut would be closer and take less time to get to. The track is a lot easier and this is a good time of year to do it as the river levels are usually lower than usual. With the colder weather, the wasps will have been knocked off.

Awesome appreciate the feedback guys ... Might consider the Hawden Hut, I think for their second tramp might be a bit much 4 hours in the dark. Thanks again appreciated. Clint

Jetnz love the pics fricken awesome!

@Clint: cheers, and just to reassure you, it wouldn't take 4 hours in the dark but there might be some dark for the last hour or so if you leave the car around 3pm.