Time: 3 hours and 15 minutes
Distance: 6.6 km
Start: Jack's Pass, Clarence Valley Road, Hanmer
Finish: Same place - it's there and back
Date: Friday 29th May 2026
A long weekend pending and only two takers (Jane and I) for today's wee excursion up Mount Isobel. It's a two hour drive from Ōtautahi to Hanmer Springs and up to Jack's Pass. We took a little longer due to an unexpected detour that saw us somewhat flummoxed at a closed gate in a nearby valley. No matter. Google maps set us right and we were soon standing at the pass ready to go.
Climbing Mount Isobel (1319 m) is a sub-alpine experience and today there was ice underfoot and a nippy breeze. Luckily we were uber-prepared. An inventory of Jane's sleek day pack looked something like this: one polypro, two puffer jackets, one raincoat, gloves, beanie, extra food and a PLB. I had something similar going on including overtrousers - although I had forgotten the PLB.
The track, "one of the most climbed in Canterbury", starts at the pass and climbs steadily to the summit on a well-formed, steep-in-places, rocky trail. The vegetation thins as you gain altitude, and the views are amazing. Patches of beech forest being infiltrated by weedy pines (sadly). Dots of snow in the distance.
One thing about trekking with Jane is that she is truly an extrovert and therefore chitchats to all kinds of random passersby in such a friendly manner that within a few minutes they are divulging their life story. Thus we met: two "lovely boys" from Ashburton currently working at Christchurch Airport; a young couple who drove up from Moana yesterday and are staying at Hanmer (she's actually originally from Ireland); a Kiwi couple who had parked their car at Conical Hill and reached the summit after 2.5 hours; a girl from Lithuania who is travelling New Zealand on a three month working visa and hoping to get a job at Coronet Peak.
After the steep screeless bit, we reached a track junction with a bench seat and some signage where someone had removed lettering so that it now reads "Jollies ass" instead of "Jollies Pass". There is something endearing about such juvenile sabotage. Jane handed her camera to the Ashburton boys and we got a sweet pic.
From there it was an easy climb up the ridge to the summit where the kiwi couple from Conical Hill were sitting looking across to the Clarence Valley and Maukuratawhai (1615 m). Apparently you can climb that one too. We took a gazillion summit trig photos, and sat in the colourful alpine garden sipping chai lattes with blowflies buzzing about. As a good samaritan I picked up some rubbish - only to discover (when I donned my spectacles) that it was an empty poison bait packet. Blurred crumbs of potassium cyanide had already tumbled out. Yikes.
Just off the summit we chatted to the Lithuanian girl, wished her luck with her job application, and scuttled down the scree. Jane's phone blacked out in what appeared to be a sudden death, but she managed to revive it again later on. At the bottom, although there was still ice underfoot, the air temperature was around 17 degrees and as balmy as a summer's day. So, not really much need for the polypro, two puffer jackets, one raincoat, gloves, beanie, extra food and a PLB. Or the overtousers. But no matter - it's good to be uber-prepared.
