Episode 039

Angelus Hut and Tramping Guiding with Dylan Arthur

2 June 2023 33 min

Episode 039

0:00 / 33:13

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Angelus Hut is one of my favourite hikes I've ever done. So when Dylan walked it, I knew we had to swap notes (it took us almost a year to get this chat recorded, but we got there).

Dylan Arthur is an outdoor photographer, a hiking guide in summer and a skier in winter, and he loves pushing his body past its limits. He didn't do heaps outdoors as a kid. Then COVID came along, and he started looking for ways to get to places not everyone gets to.

So we talk about life as a hiking guide, carrying everyone's dinner up the Devil's Staircase on the Tongariro Northern Circuit, and then Angelus Hut: the ridge, the basin, the night sky, which way to walk out and who it suits. Plus the worst blisters of his life.

In this episode

From borrowed gear to the outdoors
Working as a hiking guide
Guiding the Tongariro Northern Circuit
Angelus Hut via Robert Ridge
Pushing limits and bucket list peaks
Dylan's advice for getting out there

From borrowed gear to the outdoors

Dylan is an outdoor photographer who guides hikes in summer and skis in winter. As a kid he did a few hikes through high school, with lots of borrowed gear. They were always really hard and heavy, and nobody knew how to read the weather, so it was definitely type two fun.

Through COVID, he really started appreciating being able to get into the outdoors, and wanted to get back into it and see some new places.

Working as a hiking guide

Stuck in Auckland during COVID, Dylan went looking for an escape and found a job with Walking Legends, a guiding company. His first season, summer 2021 to 2022, was disjointed by the Auckland lockdown.

When we recorded, the company's tours included:

Tongariro, both the Great Walk and a lodge-based tour.
Lake Waikaremoana, for day walks.
The Coromandel.
Great Barrier Island.

Tongariro and the Coromandel are his main two. He splits his time between Auckland and Rotorua, where the company is based.

What guiding takes

Being calm under pressure helps a lot. Guests are often from the older generation, so you might be dealing with broken bones, or scrapes that bleed quite a lot. You need to get on with people from all walks of life, all at once, and you're the guide, the cook and the driver. It was a lot more than Dylan expected, and so much fun.

On the Great Walk it's one guide to six guests. Elsewhere, one guide can have up to ten people walking at different paces, which takes some keeping track of. Over ten, there are two guides.

When I walked the Milford Track, I was a day behind the guided tours, passing their big fancy lodges with actual mattresses and duvets.

Dylan says it's fantastic, because it opens hiking up to people who wouldn't usually go.

Guiding the Tongariro Northern Circuit

The Tongariro Northern Circuit was Dylan's first proper overnight hike, three days and two nights in huts, so it holds a special place in his heart. He did it with a borrowed pack and far too much dehydrated food.

On the guided trip, they skip the first day and walk in from the start of the Tongariro Alpine Crossing, which normally takes between five and six hours to the first hut. Guests carry their own clothes and sleeping bag, and Dylan carries all the food. Going up the Devil's Staircase with six people's worth of food can be interesting. Then there's wine, cheese and steak for dinner while everyone else has noodles.

The next day is a chill one, reaching Waihohonu Hut for lunch, with the afternoon free to read, nap, visit the springs or check out the old hut. The next morning, they walk back to the village.

Tama Lakes depends on the weather. They normally have lunch at the lower lake at least, but if you can't see the mountains, there's not much point going all the way up to the upper lake, and the ridge is pretty windy.

Angelus Hut via Robert Ridge

Dylan walked to Angelus Hut just over a year before we recorded, at the start of May, on his way south for the ski season. It was his first time in the Nelson Lakes, a solo mission for fun. He stayed at the DOC campsite at Lake Rotoiti and woke to not a breath of wind and not a cloud in the sky.

I walked it two summers before we recorded, one day up to the hut and one day out, and it's one of my favourite hikes.

Pinchgut Track and Robert Ridge

The first 45 minutes to an hour, up the Pinchgut Track, is pretty rough going, with lots of switchbacks. Once you're out of the bush, it's so hot in the sun. Even in May, with no wind at all, Dylan was rather sweaty at the top.

We were there in midsummer, and it was so so hot. Quite gruelling.

After that, the ridgeline is really nice travel for the next hour or two, until it gets steeper and more rugged near the Angelus basin. Dylan loved hopping across the big rocks and didn't find it particularly challenging, though the ridge goes on longer than you expect, with a couple of false summits.

Robert Ridge was the part that slowed me down the most. There's no real track, only rocks, so I was watching every single foot, and we took seven and a half hours with packs. Along the ridge, there are gorgeous alpine lakes all around you, in blues and greens.

Dylan has marked a few of those to explore. Seeing a tent on the shore of one has him wanting to get off the track and into those basins.

The basin, the night sky and sunrise

Nothing prepares you for reaching the end of Robert Ridge and looking down into the basin where the hut sits with its two lakes.

Dylan's plan was to summit Mount Angelus for sunrise, but he woke up and it was far too windy to go up alone. He's summited Ruapehu solo, so being out on his own isn't normally out of his comfort zone:

"when it wasn't feeling right? You kind of know that something's not quite right."

You have to trust that gut instinct.

His pinch-me moment came after sunset, out taking photos of the night sky with not a breath of wind and reflections in the small lake:

"I had the milky way Angelus Hut was lit up with people still in the common room with the candles going. So I was just out there taking photos and it was just absolutely unreal."

The next morning brought a ripper of a sunrise, so he got astro and an awesome sunrise on the same trip.

I don't remember the sunset at all. But we got up early for sunrise, and the lake was dead still, with that glow before the sun rises turning the mountains orange and pink. We got some epic reflection photos, and it's the moment that sticks with me most.

Who Angelus Hut suits

Dylan sees Angelus as the next step up for people more than comfortable on the Great Walks who've done other overnight hikes. It's well marked, but it's a route where you follow poles, so you need route-finding skills and a map and compass.

There are a fair few disaster stories from up there. When the weather comes in, it gets pretty bad, pretty quickly, so pick a good weather window and be prepared for long days on the ridge.

I'd add that it's an alpine environment, so it can get sketchy up on the ridge when big winds, rain or snow come in.

Walking out

Dylan went straight back along Robert Ridge, the fastest and most interesting way for him, because he likes ups and downs and doesn't enjoy the flat stuff.

We walked out down the Speargrass Track, which was almost as challenging for me as Robert Ridge, because you're more sore on day two. There are lots of small stream crossings and bits of mud even in summer, and although it's flat, it felt really long.

Two women at the hut had stayed two nights and used the water taxi on the lake both ways.

Dylan's idea: hike in along the ridge and water taxi out.

Angelus Hut in winter

Dylan wants to get back with friends in winter and ski in, when the snow levels are high enough and the avalanche danger is low enough. He says the Nelson Lakes are very underestimated for avalanche danger, and he reckons those basins would be fantastic skiing.

Pushing limits and bucket list peaks

One of the first things Dylan did when he left Auckland after lockdown was head straight to Tongariro National Park and climb Ruapehu solo. Alpine boots and crampons after months of lockdown gave him the worst blisters of his life. They'd popped before the summit, and he was in absolute agony coming down. The boots weren't new: alpine boots take some getting used to.

His climbing partner complements him well: Dylan is normally out of his comfort zone going uphill, and his partner coming down.

His bucket list keeps getting bigger. He spends far too much time scouring topo maps for random peaks. When we recorded, the big one was Mount Aspiring, building up with plenty of grade 1 climbs first.

Dylan's advice for getting out there

Get out there and do it, and check the weather. If it doesn't look great on your days off, go and find some waterfalls. If it looks fantastic, go for a hike.

If you have a big goal, you don't need to hike the equivalent of the Tongariro Crossing every weekend to work up to it. Small regional parks and forest parks are so underrated that you'll probably see no one all day, and there are hidden gems all over the place for you to enjoy on your way up to your big goals.