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Blyth Hut Trip - Friday 17/7/64 to Sunday 19/7/64 - (So called)

Alpine Instruction.

Present: John Rhodes, Andy Jackson, Colin Smyth, Alan Radcliffe, Tom Clarkson Dougal Congleton, Val Putt, Wendy Cave.

Instructors: Peter Banning, Bill Stephenson, George Caddie, Ian Cave. The party proceeded to Oakune on Friday night, by train, bus, car, or Stephenson-type vehicle and from there were relayed to the Blyth Hut turn-off in the two cars. The night was fine and clear and the snow soft but not too thick to obscure the track. The first arrivals at the hut spent some time in [unclear: evicting] a resident oppossum and cleaning up after some before getting down to making a brew for the others.

After a fairly late night no-one felt particularly like an early start especially after our illustrious instructors, whose first lessons were in the noble art of staying in bed as long as possible and bludging. Eventually having industriously collected fire-wood we gathered our equipment together and set off up the sunny slopes of Ruapehu. Much difficulty was encountered in finding slopes sufficiently hard to practise suicide dives and other related climbing techniques, but finally a nice hill-side of solid ice was found and we proceeded to throw ourselves around and crawl over it in the approved fashion. By this time the sunny slopes of Ruapehu were sunny no longer and lunch time found us huddled miserably under an overhang in an effort to keep out as much falling snow as possible. In spite of the weather our lunch was a fiarly lovely affair, but soon conditions became so unpleasant that everyone was pleased to return to the Hut and dray out. After a highly disorganised but very welcome meal, we sat huddled together round a tiny stove in an effort to keep warm while bill Stephenson cut slices of his fingers while trying to cut wood small enough to feed the fire. His comments were picturesque, but unprintable.

Everyone returned to bed at a fairly early hour but there was no early start in the morning. The weather was so bad that it was decided that the only thing to do was to pack up and return to Wellington. The bright sunlight of Oakune was a particularly welcome sight, especially as the mountain was still shrouded in thick grey mist.