This time I start at the official start of the track, last time I approached from the west

Just a few minutes into the walk, looking back, car park and Mt Hutt in the distance

It’s quite steep, and when you think you are close to the summit it turns out the real summit is still a little further

Nice path, shouldn’t be much longer now

The view back, Lake Coleridge and the Big Ben Range in the distance with snow on it

The summit!

I sent up the drone for some footage, Lake Coleridge to my right, Mt Oakden straight ahead

I’ll be walking the track as a loop today, this is the side of the mountain where I’ll be going downhill

It’s quite busy today

A number of landout sites for gliders in this photo. The Cragieburn Range in the distance with snow on it

The Rakaia River, Mt Arrowsmith in snow on the left

Lake Coleridge again and the path leading towards the summit

My hoodie drying

Once again Coleridge, Craigies and also Red Hill (the one with just a little topping of snow)

On the way down now, Craigies and Mt Olympus to my right

The way down, you must pass through this little canyon

Looking back towards the top, the moon is also visible

From here on it’s an easy walk down to the road

Somewhere along the Coleridge Road, sheep enjoying the grass and the little bit of sunshine that’s left for today

Great views of the Craigieburn Range

We’re nearly at the top

Made it! Torlesse Range in the background with Castle Hill Peak in the middle, that’s where I fly most often, Springfield is on the other side of the Torlesse Range

Purple Hill in the middle, Mt St Bernard just to the right of it, it’s the same mountain really

A while later (after a good rest, basking in the sun) you can see the Easterly (the clouds) pushing in through Porter’s Pass in the distance

Time to go back, here’s me descending Helicopter Hill

And Rachel

A map and height profile of today’s loop track (7.9 km)

This must be the 10th time I do this walk but it’s a good little walk to test my new daytrip backpack (verdict: it’s too small for me)

Quite a strong wind here and still heaps of snow, on the way back it had all disappeared

Foggy Peak on the far left

Craigieburn range in the distance

Rachel doing fine

Ben More on the far right, Rachel trying hard not to blend in

A bit of Lake Lyndon and the Craigieburn range in the distance

Torlesse range with Foggy Peak on the right. wave clouds starting to form in the sky and Rachel looking forward to reaching to summit

Yours truly

My ‘face mask’, I normally use it when paragliding but it’s very useful here too

What a landscape!

The summit!

We’ve reached it. Hurrah!

View towards the Black Hill range, landout strip for gliding in the middle of the photo

Trig M, Torlesse, Craigieburn range, Lake Lyndon and wave clouds all in 1 photo

This view makes the 5 hour return completely worth it

Wind is picking up now and wave clouds are forming more and more

Last photo in sunshine for the day, soon after this photo the sky had all turned grey

Map of the route we walked: the Coach Stream Route followed by the Trig M route to the top, and back again