Mt Climie

I've walked up to the summit of Mt Climie probably over 200 times now. Its a 5km hike up a steep and very unrelenting 864m 4WD track to the top. I've done it in hot summers, rain, snow, and gales.

I used to take Sam and Dana up to in the Mountain Buggy I had when they were pre schoolers.

The photos in this gallery are in order, i.e. in the order you walk up it.

The BCL or Broadcast Communications Ltd (BCL) television transmission tower at the 'first' summit of Mt Climie. You climb up the very steep track for an hour surrounded by thick bush then suddenly you break out into the open (at the tower) only to find that the track goes on along the ridge for another 10 - 15 minutes. 26 August 2004
Mid morning 2 - 3 minutes past the tower in the previous picture. It's pretty cool (no pun intended) being up here and being the only person there - one feels like you are the only person in the world. 26 August 2004
A nice picture ruined by the 4WD tracks! I would bet the driver who normally comes up to service the towers up here probably came up just for a 'tikki tour' to see the snow! 16 August 2004.
16 Aug 2004. 860m Summit of Mt Climie, and note I've even managed to get the sun in this picture! And...no, I haven't made mistakes with these dates, they really are on different days during August. Mt Climie has snow on it one or two days a year, but this particular (cold) winter it lasted a week or more. I walked up to the top about 5 times to experience the snow. On one of the days I had to walk down again in the dark.... but I had planned for that and took my headlamp with me.
There are towers up here overlooking Upper Hutt for TVNZ, The Police, and Telecom. Oddly enough none of them have identifying marks on them. I guess that is so people don't know who owns which, so they won't vandalise them? 16 August 2004
I like the 'moody' look of this picture - the mist and the dead tree trunks. It can be quite errie (but always fun) up here sometimes. Note the wind by the flax bushes leaning over - another typical day at the summit of Mt Climie! 7 November 2003

Mt Climie Nov 2003 Past the last of the communications towers, Mt Climie, just north of Upper Hutt. its quite a hike up to here, up the steep Mt Climie 4WD track, then into this wilderness for a little bit. Although I'm less than 90 minutes back to the Tunnel Gully Car Park, you do feel like you are in quite rugged wilderness.

From far summit past Telecom Tower Mt Climie Apr 2012