Time: 3 hours and 50 minutes (~2 hours to the summit)
Distance: 8.5 km
Start: Lake Lyndon Lodge
Finish: Same place - it's there and back
Date: Friday 23rd May 2025
Warning: This is an unmarked route. Take care to pick the correct spur for the descent from the summit. If it's cloudy, maybe wait for another day.
Bluebird skies in Canterbury, with a dusting of snow on the alps. A perfect day to climb Mt Lyndon starting at Lyndon Lodge. Just Jane and I today, we had to park about 5 minutes short of the lodge because the gravel road degenerated into a gazillion potholes which simply got bigger and deeper as we proceeded, until we were finally forced to stop and reverse back to a suitable parking spot.
Sitting on Department of Conservation land, Lake Lyndon Lodge (formerly known as Pathfinder Lodge) belongs to the Seventh Day Adventists who built it in 1966. These days they rent it out, B.Y.O wood, coal and cutlery. Behind the lodge there is a clear track that heads southwest. I had read on koradventures blog that, to reach Mount Lyndon summit via the south spur, we should take this path and then branch off to the right (north) on obscure bike tracks that run through the scrub up to the ridge.
It started well, but five minutes from the lodge we turned off too soon and were soon clambouring up steep scrub - matagouri, dracophylum and spaniard grass/taramea. Jane got spiked straight through her leggings and was bleeding by the time the vegetation thinned. After that, the ridge progressively narrowed and the path(s) became more prominent and easy to follow. We were mostly on and off a myriad of bike trails that criss-crossed the scree. Pick any track you like and, as long as you stay on the ridge, you can't go wrong.
After about 1 hour and 45 minutes the ridge flattened out and we were at a large cairn. I checked the topo. A false summit - but it was only 5 minutes or so further on to the true summit cairn. Summits are always wonderful places to linger for pics and paramanawa and superb views. Here we could make out Porters Skifield, Lake Coleridge and the Rakaia River in the distance. A New Zealand Pipit/pīhoihoi (a.k.a. Richard's Pipit, Anthus novaeseelandiae), with white eyebrows and feathery pantaloons, hopped over the rocks to check us out. An alpine passerine. Super cute.
Another tramper by the name of "Golden" arrived. Irish extraction. She was doing a full circuit, having just ascended the eastern spur. She tagged along with us for the descent back to the lodge. First, a return to the false summit cairn, and then we headed for a track that could be seen clearly from the cairn. Jane was saying: "we are going the wrong way" and eventually I checked the topo. We had gone waaay off-piste and were on another ridge. Luckily it was relatively straight forward to find our way back to the right one.
Nearing the bottom, the frost had thawed and it was a bit slippy and slidy. Mud balled up on our soles and it felt like we were stomping along in gummies. We were aiming to follow the bike paths as the ridge curved but every now and then the path petered out and we ended up wading through scrub. In the end we avoided the last steep scrubby bit by veering west and reconnecting with the original east-west path we had started on.
Back at the lodge we peaked inside - no adventists - then looked out for crested grebes/pūteketeke on the lake. We walked through the water-filled potholes to de-ball our boots. We dropped Golden back at her car and then, with a quick stop in Springfield for caffeine we were soon home. Jane, bless her, on hearing my house might be dry, flourished a bottle of red wine for me - which I am happily drinking now as I write this. Rabbit Island, Central Otago. Ngā mihi e hoa, I am grateful for such an epic walk. Life is good.
