Lake Sumner Hike

I have always wondered if you could get to Lake Sumner by car, today I discovered a track on topomap that seems to suggest you can. I want to find out if this is the case and decide to hike this track. This is about halfway between The Sisters on the left and Little Sisters on the right and looking down towards the valley in which the Hurunui river flows, Glynn Wye Range in the background

Looking back towards the northern end of Little Sisters

I’m north of The Sisters here, tracking northwest towards The Brothers Range

Note to self, you can land a glider here

The Hurunui River, so far the track I hiked could have been done by car

Here I crossed a paddock that could not be done by car but I assume a car could drive around it

I now have The Brothers to my left and there’s a road again so it must indeed connect to what I was on before

The Hurunui River again, it’s beautiful here, Mt Longfellow in front of me, often a turnpoint for me when I’m out gliding

Almost at Lake Sumner, so it is indeed possible to get to Lake Sumner by car!

Lake Sumner, looking west

Me, enjoying a break

And then my camera battery died so I had to take the remaining photos with my phone, which means crappy quality. This is how far I walked along the shore of the lake, now heading back again, it’s not going fast on this surface

Back on the grasland again, that’s a lot faster, Little Sisters in the background, that’s what I’m heading for

I didn’t cross the paddock again but took a detour following the obvious car tracks to make absolutely sure a car could get there, and it could but there were some fields with cows that would need to be traversed. This is looking back to where I cam from, the lake is just behind that dark mountain on the far left

Between The Sisters and Little Sisters again, and so are the sheep

Oronoko Range ahead of me

Almost back at the car, just this Sisters Stream left to cross

The track I hiked, it’s that black dashed line that starts at the road south of Little Sisters and goes between Little Sisters and The Sisters and then towards the southern shore of the lake, the hike was 21 km and took me 5.5 hours including rest

Leave a Reply