It's a long walk up the Ahuriri valley to Top Hut, especially with heavy packs and not having a 4WD we had an extra 7km to walk as well. It was good to see so many people out and about on Christmas Day, - there were families camped in the bush by the river and cyclists at Haggans Hut.
Boxing Day started wet, so we had a delayed start at Top Hut waiting for the rain to stop. The 1000m climb to cross in to the Temple Valley was great and we managed to stay dry all the way up as we climbed with Mount Huxley in front of us.
Amazingly we had 10 minutes of blue sky whilst we were on the saddle, but could already see the next weather system crossing the nearby tops at an alarming rate.
5 minutes after starting the descent to South Temple, the rain came in and continued for the rest of the afternoon. This didn't stop us having fun on the long soft snow slopes that we glissaded down, - losing height rapidly.
We were pretty soaked by the time we arrived at South Temple Hut, but dried everything out with the help of the fire. For a while the rain was pretty heavy in the evening and we were worried that we might get stuck in the hut. Luckily the rain stopped some time in the night and the rivers, although higher than normal were still perfectly fordable.
On the Sunday we crossed back to the Watson Stream. The views to the Temple Valley from here are outstanding.
We had originally had in mind the possibility of continuing on in to the Maitland’s Valley and Snowy Gorge but 400m of scree and rock put us off. The descent to the main arm of the Watson Stream is slow and a long boulder hop - you could be on the moon or mars in the upper sections as the vegetation is non existent. We camped at the bush line in Watson Stream on open grassy terraces
The final day was a long walk out of the Ahuriri Valley in the heat, meeting even more people coming in to enjoy the valley and mountains, including a gentleman on a horse.
All in all a successful tramp and an enjoyable way to spend Christmas.
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