Heading for the Pinnacles

The Pinnacles are named after the rock formations on the northern face of Mt Somers, formed by the cooling of very hot sticky lava flows some 90 million years ago. Here you can barely see the start of the towering columns.

Sit back and enjoy the large view :-)

If you look carefully you can follow the track up in to the snow before it disappears around to the left where it wound up through deep snow. Make that deep, soft snow. Often we unceremoniously crashed through ending up in knee or thigh deep snow.

We lunched at the Woolshed Creek hut before pushing up and over to the Pinnacles. At this time of year there can be a lot of snow and ice over the pass. Once we hit the snow it was slow going. The melt has begun.

A warmish sort of day. Plenty of weather further towards the Main Divide. Fine but with plenty of wind. Mostly a 2-3 layer day. Just warm enough to manage with just shorts, boots and gaiters on my bottom half. Staunch ;-)

I can't get enough of this part of Canterbury. Barely 1.5 hour drive and this is what you get into.

Glorious :-)