Thread: Hunting in the Snow

Someone asked a question about this so I looked back at some old pics.

I hunted the Ruahines a lot over the winters during the meat hunting era. By myself and with a mate. 45-50 odd years ago.

Mainly in this area: https://www.wildernessmag.co.nz/whanahuia-range/
Up the Mangoira/Mangawairiki and Pari mainly.

The Whanahuia sub range is lower than the main Ruahine range and the fringe around the tussock holds deer right through the winter and even better the warmer faces in the creek head waters and down into the Orua. We would sometimes battle our way through the snow and camp at the Triangle hut junction and hunt those creek heads or head down to the hut. On the better days we would strike deer out in the tussock during the winter. I would in particular hunt the clear weather eye in behind a southerly.

We had tracks cut that gave us good winter access - a couple of them are still there and kept open by people -Ive seen pics of Philipo on one of them.

Winter hunting can be good and I really enjoyed it. And dangerous I guess if you aren't careful. Some of our gear was pretty basic but we seemed to get by. I can remember my swanny often being frozen stiff while wearing it.

Its worth noting that for some of the winter you wont get past the Rangi hut, but can hunt around the tops on the more southern end of the range above the Mangoira.

These old and not so old pics will give an idea of what it was like (and likely still is).