South Island 7b Young Wilkin - Gillespie Pass

[past my sell by date]

After our excellent trip to Crucible lake we decided to walk up to Gillespie pass on another fine day, following the track we would have come down if we'd down the normal circuit

Siberia valley map
We followed the same path intitially, but instead of crossing the main stream the track headed R up into the Gillespie basin keeping the stream below us and on our L

Looking down on the stream
At around the 1100m mark, however the stream headed L (North) while the track continued up the steep slopes to the a 1629m "lump" just before the pass. The track continues down the Young valley from here and doesn't actually visit the pass.

Looking back down Gillespie Stream

Another view from a bit higher

Looking up Gillespie basin to Mt. Awful

again from a little bit higher
These slopes were covered in flowers:-

Great-white-Buttercup

Mount Cook Lily - the world 's largest buttercup

Detail - this is probably the best specimen I have ever seen

Looking up - the path zigzags

Nearing the top

From the summit.: Mt Dreadful beyond the intervening ridge

Zoomed

Zoomed some more

Donna having a rest : Mt Awful behind with an (unamed on the map) 2026m peak on the R and 1920m Young peak popping up behind

Zoomed view of the 2026m unnamed peak

Zoomed view of Young peak over the ridge

Looking in the other direction down the ridge South towards 2151m Mt. Turner

Buttercups

Eyebright

Another view of the stream on the descent

When we returned to the hut, a lot of the people had gone and the outside (composting) loo smelt a lot better - they get pretty bad when heavily used
The next day we descended the track to Kevin Forks, and awaited the jetboat.
Here are some photos of the Wilkin River

Walking down the riverbank

Looking downstream

Various views looking on up the Wilkin river: with 2283m Mt. Aeolus I think
Back down at Makarora

Looking back up the Wilkin River to Mt. Aeolus

Another view back towards where we had been

Car park at Makarora