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Mt Cloudsley-Mt Enys Traverse, Castle Hill

Mark Eaglesfield

The Craigieburn Range rises west of Castle Hill, Canterbury, South Island. Long Spur connects Castle Hill village with Mt Cloudsley. Mt Enys - the highest peak in the range - is the next peak south from Mt Cloudsley.

This was my route to Mt Enys. I wish it had been my route back from Mt Enys, too.

Screenshots of the NZ topographic map are licensed as CC BY 4.0 by Toitū Te Whenua Land Information New Zealand (LINZ).

Hiking up Long Spur, and then traversing from Mt Cloudsley to Mt Enys, is straightforward. The question is how to get down from Mt Enys. There are a variety of answers to this question. I ended up not liking my answer to this question. To discourage imitation, I haven’t drawn it on my topomap screenshot. Instead, I’ve just drawn my route to Mt Enys via Mt Cloudsley. This is the route by which I wish I had returned.

Time

My hike lasted 14 hours 37 minutes, counting breaks but not counting a few minutes of hitchhiking. Without the hitchhiking, it probably would have taken me around 15 hours and 10-20 minutes. It remains my longest hike.

  • I reached Mt Cloudsley in around 3 hours 45 minutes.

  • From the beginning to Mt Enys took around 6 hours 10 minutes.

Had I returned the way I came - to reiterate, I believe this is the best option - it probably would have taken 11-12 hours total.

Route

In Castle Hill village, I drove west along Castle Hill Drive as it went from paved to unpaved, and into a grove. I parked in a clearing on the left, somewhere near this site. From there, I followed Hogs Back Track out of the forest and to the foot of Long Spur. Hiking up the spur was overwhelmingly straightforward for both footing and navigation, even though sometimes there was no impact track visible, or more than one. There was tricky footing for maybe 2 minutes in total during the ascent to the summit of Mt Cloudsley.

From the summit of Mt Cloudsley, I set off south for Mt Enys across a broad ridge of countless stones. Without cloud, it was obvious where to go.

From the summit of Mt Enys, I decided that descending by Dead Man Spur - the most common circuit route - would be too difficult, because it is both steep and loose. This was based on prior reading, as the descent slopes were out of sight; later I saw this video.

Instead, I decided to follow Whitewater Stream, inspired by this Christchurch Tramping Club route. (All of the club’s other routes seem to go down Dead Man Spur.) So I walked back downhill the way I had come (from the north), then turned right (east) to descend the broad scree slope to the head of Whitewater Stream in a zig-zagging route. It took longer than expected to get down the 450 meters or so of loose rocks on a fairly, though not extremely, steep slope. The head of the stream (south branch) was a spring, so I refilled my Powerade bottles. Beyond the spring, the terrain narrowed into a valley.

In Whitewater valley, the going got tougher. I had to slide down one or two small bluffs not far below the head of the stream. After that, I crossed and re-crossed the stream 10-20 times, and alternated between walking along the streambed or in dense vegetation just uphill from it. Usually the streambed won out. Throughout all of this, I kept my socks dry thanks to careful steps and my Outdoor Research Crocodile gaiters. But stepping so carefully slowed me down.

My plan was to turn left (north) and climb the saddle between Point 1556 (to the west) and Leith Hill (to the east), then descend to Castle Hill village on the Leith Hill Loop track. However, I couldn’t spot a good route up the steep slope to the saddle, and I was tired. Instead, I decided to try to walk around Leith Hill’s eastern face. I started along what seemed to be a track, but I lost it amid dense shrubs; I could easily see where I was, but could hardly move forward. From here, I decided the only way to get out of the vegetation before nightfall was to reach the highway. So I turned right (east) and began crossing a large unused/overgrown section of pasture, aiming for the south fence of the Castle Hill rocks.

This brought me onto mildly marshy land. (The marshiness would probably have been much worse after rain.) Some grass was taller than I am. There was no track, but the plants were mostly pliable enough to push through, with only the occasional matagouri thornbush. Slight rises in the gentle terrain helped me keep on course toward the south fence of the Castle Hill rocks, which was on a chain of small of hills

Once I was on this chain of hills, I had to dodge some matagouri and speargrass, but the navigational work was over, because the grass was much shorter, making it easy to see over it. There was an impact track running near the fence at times. The height of the grass on the marsh indicated that grazing animals had not been in this pasture for a long time. Therefore, I think it’s very likely the impact track was human-made.

The sun had set by the time I reached the highway, so I turned on my headlamp and set it to blink, then started walking north along the grassy margin toward Castle Hill village. The first driver picked me up and brought me to the gate of the village. I am grateful to her.

If 1 is an easy track, and 4 is using hands and feet on exposed rocks, I give the ascent a 2 at worst. The non-steep parts were a 1.

The descent to the head of the stream was a 3, and the valley of the stream was a mix of 3 and 4. The dense plants were a 3 in terms of danger of tripping, but perhaps a 4 in terms of obstructiveness.

On Mt Cloudsley. Mt Izard at left. Mt Enys at right.

On Mt Enys, facing west. Mt Cloudsley out of view at right. Big Ben Range prominent near left beyond Trig M and Lake Lyndon. Lake Coleridge, right of center, very blue.

Other pages about various versions of the traverse

Pages about Mt Cloudsley only

Pages about Leith Hill only

Pages about Mt Enys only

Pages about other Craigieburn Range hikes that I haven’t done

Regional info

  • John and Charles Enys: Castle Hill Runholders, 1864-1891, by Jenny Abrahamson.

The story I read is that Dead Man Spur got its name from a young man who died while tramping with his friends in winter. They took his body down the spur on a sledge. Thus the name. I don’t recall whether I read about this in Abrahamson’s book, or somewhere else.