Episode 062

Hiking the Three Passes Route from Arthur's Pass to Hokitika with Pat Nolan

9 November 2023 42 min

Episode 062

0:00 / 42:00

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Pat is a Christchurch tramper who's been at it a long time. He calls it hiking sometimes, because his friends in America think a tramp is a guy with a knapsack and a stick. And he's got stories. So many stories.

The big one is the Three Passes, which he walked once with friends and then again with his daughter. He didn't tell her how steep Browning Pass was, or what was waiting on the other side, because he wanted her to feel the magic he felt the first time. (I love this so much.) It was also the trip where they walked out in the dark and he went under at the last river crossing.

So we go through the whole route, pass by pass, plus the two ways out and his advice if you're thinking of doing it. Then we get into Te Araroa: the book that started it, the inner ear problem that nearly ended it, and walking from Bluff to Picton with a good friend. And Pat's simple advice for anyone just starting out.

In this episode

How Pat got into tramping
Three Passes: Klondyke Corner to Whitehorn Pass
Three Passes: Browning Pass and Lake Browning
Three Passes: out via the Arahura or the Styx
Three Passes tips: weather, ice and gear
Walking Te Araroa from Bluff to Picton
What's next and Pat's advice

How Pat got into tramping

Pat works in the building industry in Christchurch. He tramps at the weekends and trains up the Port Hills after work whenever he can.

He grew up in Nelson. His dad was a hunter, in the bush as often as he could be, and Pat would tag along as much as possible, often staying in the hut while his dad was out hunting. He absolutely loved it. He walked the Heaphy Track when he was 12.

The Mount Arthur Tableland

They spent a lot of time up on the Mount Arthur Tableland, before it became a tramping mecca, when access was through farmland only. They'd stay in the old Salisbury Hut, which had a dirt floor and is now long gone, and at Flora Hut, which has thankfully been preserved. That was Pat's earliest tramping adventure, in such beautiful country.

Later, he took his own kids into the new Salisbury Hut. It rained on the way out, so they probably didn't think it was as cool as he did, and he hopes it was the start of getting them into the outdoors.

Three Passes: Klondyke Corner to Whitehorn Pass

Pat had walked the Three Passes the year before with some good mates. When he decided his daughter was ready for something more technical, and she was up for it, the Three Passes over Christmas was the perfect fit.

Getting to the start

The route starts up the Waimakariri and finishes on the West Coast, so they took two cars. They left Christchurch early in the morning, drove all the way over Arthur's Pass to drop one car at Lake Kaniere, then drove all the way back and walked in from Klondyke Corner to Carrington Hut. It was a big day, and they were pretty shattered by the end of it.

Carrington is a huge hut, and over Christmas there were only three others there. It was a beautiful afternoon, so they had a feed and chilled.

Ariels Tarns

The next morning you head up towards Ariels Tarns. There's quite a big river to work your way up, and the word is that if you can't cross that river, don't bother going. It's quite a climb, and at the top it's spectacular, with water running out of the moss and off the hill everywhere. They had lunch at the tarns.

Whitehorn Pass in cloud

Then it's on to Whitehorn Pass, which at the time was glaciered and iced all the way down. They took microspikes and a couple of ice axes, and it was a few hours to the top. When they got there, it was completely clouded in. They couldn't see the route down the other side.

That was the moment that took Pat's breath away. It was so clagged in, with quite a few bluffs, that it wasn't safe to go down blind, and he didn't want to turn back. So they sat and ate and chewed up time, hoping the fog would lift.

It did, very briefly, and Pat spotted a walking trail of sorts. There aren't many poles, so they followed other people's trail down, got back onto the glacier ice in their microspikes and zoomed down the middle of the valley, much easier than hours of boulder hopping.

They reached Park Morpeth Hut mid-afternoon, chilled with another couple and had an early night.

Three Passes: Browning Pass and Lake Browning

Pat knew Browning Pass wasn't overly hard, and it's a nice walk down to Harman Hut later in the day, so they had a bit of a sleep-in.

An old road and a pounamu trail

Browning Pass has quite a history. It was an old road, put in for the gold miners to get sheep from east to west, but they never finished it, because the Arthur's Pass road won. It was also a greenstone trail, used to bring pounamu over the Alps.

The zigzag to the top

You go up a zigzag, and the last stretch is steep: you're grabbing footholds and bunches of tussock with a heavy pack on, and you don't want to tip over backwards. If you're not a heights person, you don't want to be doing this one.

Pat didn't tell his daughter how steep it was, because he didn't want to put her off. He's sure a few little swear words came out when she realised how far it still was to the top, with her old man saying she'd be fine.

Lake Browning

Once you cross the top of the gully, you walk out onto beautiful tussock land and look out over Lake Browning, a huge lake, with snow on the mountains all around. Pat hadn't told her what was on the other side, either:

"I just wanted her to get the magic that I felt my first trip through there"

The hardest part was biting his tongue and letting her find out for herself. What made it for him was watching her enjoy herself.

From the top, the rest of the trip is a breeze, and the track down to Harman Hut is beautiful.

Three Passes: out via the Arahura or the Styx

From Harman Hut there are two ways out, and Pat has done both.

The Arahura Valley

The first time, with his friends, he went down the Arahura Valley and stopped at Lower Arahura Hut at the bottom. It took an extra day, but it was beautiful and easy, because the track follows another old road. There were a few washouts and rivers flowing down the middle of the track, and it was a very cool trip. In the Arahura River they found a huge piece of pounamu among the big boulders, and left it there.

The Styx Valley

With his daughter, Pat took the shorter route DOC recommended at the time, down the Styx Valley. But clouds were rolling in, and they'd have to cross the Styx River quite a few times. West Coast being West Coast, if it bucketed down they'd be stuck, so they decided to get out that night, and a short day turned into a very long one.

The original track had been washed away, and the route had switched to an old possum trappers' track that wasn't on any topo map. They'd find a bit of tape or an old piece of permolat on a tree, head that way, then lose it again at a washout, backtracking into the bush to look for a sign. It was rough going, with a bit of route finding.

Another hut on the way was infested with rats and had no water, so they motored on.

The last river crossing

They reached the last crossing of the Styx just on dark. The river was up a bit, waist deep, and the bottom was slimy. Pat waded across with his pack, came back for his daughter, and halfway across he slipped and went under. She thought her old man was getting drowned. He'd managed to hook his feet on some rocks and popped back up.

Thankfully the weather was mild, so he changed into dry clothes and they motored out, reaching the end of the track at 11pm.

When Pat contacted DOC afterwards to say how bad the track was, he says they told him they recommend people go down the Arahura now. It takes a day longer, and it's a much better track.

Three Passes tips: weather, ice and gear

Pat calls the Three Passes a reasonably common medium to advanced trip. His tips:

Get your weather window right. Being caught out by the weather is your worst scenario, and it changes quickly in the mountains. If it turns, you stay in a hut.
Take microspikes or crampons. Whitehorn Pass is up a glacier. It's not really steep, but it's hard to walk on without the right gear.
Be prepared for four seasons in a day, like anywhere in the New Zealand outdoors.

Walking Te Araroa from Bluff to Picton

How it started

Many years ago, Pat read the book about the Pacific Crest Trail that became the Reese Witherspoon film, and thought a long journey could be interesting. He'd seen Te Araroa while tramping around the Ashburton Lakes without knowing much about it.

Then, walking the St James by himself, he met three people walking northbound with no fresh food, because they'd skipped Hanmer. Pat gave a young American guy an apple, and he just about cried.

That's when Pat set himself a goal to walk it in a year's time, and started researching lightweight gear and ultralight food.

At his tramping club in Christchurch, people would say they'd love to, but work or family wouldn't allow it. Then a friend he'd done a lot of tramping with said she had so much leave, could she come? Her partner was really supportive, and they had a plan.

Learning to balance again

Two months out, Pat woke up one morning with an inner ear problem and couldn't stand up, and for months he couldn't walk properly. So every morning he'd walk along a park near his place, shaking his head, sometimes falling over (he could imagine the neighbours saying, there's that drunk guy again). It worked: he found a new equilibrium and could walk again.

He might fall a few times, but he was going to walk the South Island, from Bluff to Picton.

Bluff to Picton

After a circuit around Stewart Island with friends, they started walking from Bluff in January 2019. The first long days of road walking were really hard on the feet. His friend's partner drove ahead for a couple of days, putting the tents up and bringing coffees. It rained at the start, and the first few mountains were boggy, but it turned out to be a very dry year.

Sunrise on Mount Rintoul

One highlight was climbing Mount Rintoul from Rintoul Hut for sunrise, with a 360 degree view all the way to the North Island volcanoes and the Mount Arthur ranges all lit up.

A good friend, a lot of falls

Pat realised later that walking alone wouldn't have been nearly as much fun. He was still having balance issues and fell over a lot, ending up in the mud or the grass, and they'd laugh about it. The mountains made up for it, with wicked sunrises and lovely walkers coming the other way to high-five.

One day at a time

Pat says he's not a young, sprightly person, and getting out of the sleeping bag when everything ached was a mental challenge. What kept him going was curiosity, a bit like his daughter going over Browning Pass:

"every day was just, what am I going to see today"

Big trees or little trees, tussock, moss, birds, rivers. And all he had to do was get up and walk for a day, which he does every weekend anyway.

Freedom, food and the bush

What Pat got out of it most was freedom. The only things to worry about were where to put his head and what he was going to eat, with a tent or a hut each night. No mowing the lawns.

"You don't often get that in life to not have any worries."

He reckons it made him a bit more resilient, realising he could do things he didn't know he could. The surprise was food: he'd based his meals on weekend tramps, with a pie on the way in and a pie on the way home, and in the middle of nowhere, his meals weren't filling the gap.

What's next and Pat's advice

When we recorded, Pat and his daughter had a Nelson Lakes trip planned for Christmas. He's done a circuit there with friends, up to Lake Angelus and over Sunset Saddle, and it's weather dependent: Robert Ridge is about as exposed as you're going to get in bad weather. He also has a day trip up Blimit in Arthur's Pass in mind, a peak Canterbury trampers will know the full name of.

His advice for new hikers: keep putting one foot in front of the other, because anybody can do it, and enjoy it. It doesn't have to be a huge hike: walk up the road or up the hill. New Zealand is one of the most beautiful countries in the world, there's a lot to appreciate, so get out there.