Helicopter Hill, Castle Hill
Helicopter Hill is a short hike in the Castle Hill area of Canterbury, South Island. It is part of Craigieburn Forest Park, and a foothill of Hamilton Peak, one of the peaks on the ridge of the Craigieburn Range. The trailhead is around 30 minutes from Arthur's Pass, around 10 minutes from Castle Hill village, and around 30 minutes from Springfield on the Canterbury Plain.
The rain shadow effect makes Castle Hill much less rainy than Arthur’s Pass. This is one of three hikes near Castle Hill that I’ve done because it was raining in Arthur’s Pass, where I was staying. The others were Trig M (beside Lake Lyndon) and Mt Cloudsley - Mt Enys Traverse (beside Castle Hill village). While staying in Castle Hill village itself, I did the Mt Lyndon - Red Hill Traverse.
Time
Screenshots of the NZ topographic map are licensed as CC BY 4.0 by Toitū Te Whenua Land Information New Zealand (LINZ).
DOC estimates that reaching Lyndon Saddle takes 1 hour 30 minutes, and the summit of Helicopter Hill a further 30 minutes. This may be an instance of DOC high-balling their estimated times on hikes which attract less fit hikers.
It took me a little under 1 hour to reach the summit. I was probably in a hurry so as to visit the Castle Hill rocks in the afternoon. I didn’t make note of the descent time.
Route
Round-trip, AllTrails reports 440 meters of elevation gain and 5.6 kilometers in length.
The parking lot is at Mistletoe Campsite.
From there, the moderately steep Mistletoe track rises through the woods, along the lower slopes of Helicopter Hill, to a four-way junction. DOC refers to this as Lyndon Saddle in a document, but not on the topomap. The track to the right ascends to the summit. This track becomes loose and somewhat steeper, but it is not particularly challenging.
If 1 is an easy track, and 4 is using hands and feet on exposed rocks, the ascent was a mix of 2 (especially above the saddle) and 1.
Points 1525 and 1550. Behind them at left, Mt Hamilton. At right, Mt Manson.
