After a week of recovery from Manakau, and with bad weather on the horizon, I decided to make the short trip to Lake Coleridge for another running peak, this time slightly less climb to Peak Hill (1240m), a classic Canterbury day walk.
The weather in Christchurch was pretty bad, but after driving down West Coast Road, it changed and the blue skies commenced. Excellent! This was going to be good.
The roads were clear of snow, so different to when I ventured out here for Black Hill (Peak 23) only a month ago! There was not really any snow to be seen up to around 1500m – crazy to think that we were knee deep at 500m that day.
Still, a great drive out and the run started well. Testing out the Suunto and Garmin along side each other I set off on my way up the ridge route.
The clouds were floating my way from the Craigieburn ski fields, so I had to be quick to outrun them up the spur… this was going to be tricky and eventually got swallowed up in fog. Still, after a few minutes, like most weather systems in NZ, it cleared. Awesome views again!
The run was an easy one, nice for the legs to get out and be tested on a running route. the spines of the ridge were fun to race across and the last climb was a little steeper than I imagined, but easy enough to conquer within 50 minutes to the summit.
A nice long time in the sun at the summit meant that I could take in the views and check out the snow covered peaks in the distance at the source of the Rakaia River.
The lake on the descent was again covered in cloud, but glimpses of blue could be seen beneath and I was spoiled on the long descent with the Mt Hutt range to my right.
Back down Peak Hill, across the fields and to the car. A nice little run, but definitely less time spent running than in the car driving today – but I’ll take that after last weeks’ 2 day mission.
I decided to try to grab a cheeky 29th peak (2 in 1 day) but unfortunately trespassing signs were in great number so I decided to make that a peak for another day after a chat with the farmer…
Anyhow, Peak 28 and going strong! Bring on the Spring (or even more snow for the skiers amongst us!)
M