Hapuku River and Surveyor Spur, 25-26 August 2012

This weekend we set out to climb Mt Manukau in the Seaward Kaikouras via Hapuku River and Surveyor Spur. The trip started with a pleasant walk up the valley and up the exposed Surveyor spur with fantastic views down to the Kaikoura peninsula and ended in a disaster. After a sleepless night at approx 2000m listening to the northwester gale that developed during the night and was now burying our tent with spindrift, the tent finally collapsed in the morning (poles snapped and teared the fly). We quickly stuffed the remainder of our gear into our packs and started the descent. The wind was still so strong that we couldn't stand up,only crawl. We were blown down the ridge towards the drop off and needed to self arrest several times. In a desperate attempt to get away from the ridge and into a more sheltered basin we then almost got caught in a massive avalanche as the whole slope below us gave way. So we crawled back up a bit and started digging into the side of the slope. At that point we only had one shovel left. The little cave made for good shelter and we managed to warm up and collect ourselves. Later that day we were able to descend the exposed ridge, the wind had died down, but was still very strong. Although having lost a lot of our climbing gear on the mountain, we were very cheerful and relieved upon finally reaching the valley floor. Team: James Thornton and Nina Dickerhof