25/09/2026
—- TRIP REPORT ——
Location: Mount Cheeseman
Party: Adam, Aaron, Diego, Etienne, Maxine, Ryan, Jim
I was awoken at 2:30 am on Sunday by a drumming on my roof and wondered if this rain might be our first wet winter warm up. A few hours later, my alarm pushed aside restless dreams and I rubbed my eyes open to a flickering view out the window of starry skies. A quick forecast check promised a bluebird day!
With spring’s longer days the sun was ready to crest the hills to the east as we left the Texas Flat car park at about 6:30 am. After a tour of the hog’s back we crossed the south branch of Tims Stream and busied ourselves with 300m of tussock climbing to make the rocky ridge and our first snow.
Our arrival at the ridge was overseen by a solitary Karearea. As we got close our silent sentinel flew further up the ridge to monitor our progress before descending to the bush in search of what we hoped might be a second breakfast. We relished the opportunity to leave the tussock behind and scramble up the rocky snow-clad ridge to the east face of the slope leading to point 1950 on the main range a few hundred metres North of Mt Cheeseman.
Our early start paid off as we found the snow above 1,700m was still firm enough to move faster with crampons on than kick steps, despite facing the morning sun. As we moved south along the ridge to the summit, we saw that a combination of wind and sun had stripped the snow on north and west facing slopes. A curious kea hopped on a rock to chat with us as we passed.
At the top we dug some sit-pits on the summit to eat lunch out of the wind.
The surface on the east face we descended had a thin crust of verglas on spring corn.
It was great to enjoy plenty of banter with male and female members from their early 20s to late 50s, from New Zealand, Australia, Brazil and France.
