Mt Barrosa, Mt Somers village
The Clent Hills, with public land highlighted. See below Wilderness Magazine quote on the possibility of continuing north.
Mt Barrosa is in the lower center.
Screenshots of the NZ topographic map are licensed as CC BY 4.0 by Toitū Te Whenua Land Information New Zealand (LINZ).
Mt Barrosa is a medium-length hike in the Clent Hills, 15 minutes west of Mt Somers village in the Hakatere (Ashburton Lakes) region of Canterbury, South Island.
The hike is normally an out-and-back. I made a wrong turn to the left on the ascent and continued off-track through tussock for a while, giving my route a small loop.
Without clouds, it should provide a good view of the adjacent, higher Mt Somers.
Public land stretches from this hike, which is at the southern end of the Clent Hills, all the way to the Te Araroa Trail and the Stour Track, which lie beyond the northern slopes. Please let me know if you have heard of anyone doing a through-hike, presumably north-to-south.
Time
DOC says the track is 2 hours 30 minutes one-wayBar.
AllTrails users report an average of 4 hours and 1 minute round-trip.
This hike took me around 7 hours, including breaks. The unintended detour probably added 20-30 minutes to my time.
The left portion of the loop was my off-track ascent.
Screenshots of the NZ topographic map are licensed as CC BY 4.0 by Toitū Te Whenua Land Information New Zealand (LINZ).
Route
Round-trip, AllTrails reports an elevation gain of 825 meters and a length of 6.4 kilometers.
There is a parking lot off the right (north) side of Ashburton Gorge Road
Shortly after the fairly easy stream crossing, I took a wrong turn by going left (west) up the wrong part of the spur. I realized what had happened within five minutes, but continued, partly because the low cloud was a bit thinner further west. (Note that there are no photos of Mt Somers, nearby to the east, in the below gallery. I didn’t see it at all.)
This improvised route had no exposure, so it wasn’t particularly dangerous. But the tussock was wet and I wasn’t wearing gaiters, so my socks got wet.
If I were to do this hike again, I would either wear gaiters or stick to the track.
The track is fairly narrow and somewhat steep in places. It faces south, and Wilderness Magazine warns how slippery it can be in winter.
There is less of a track in the final few hundred meters approaching the summit, although it doesn’t disappear entirely. The route is marked by orange poles. In low cloud, I occasionally couldn’t see the next pole.
The summit itself has some interesting boulders, with lichen and quartz (or a similar mineral).
If 1 is an easy track, and 4 is using hands and feet on exposed rocks, I give this track a 2 for the official route, and a 3 for parts of my off-track ascent.
Mt Possession farm at left and center. Hakatere farm at far right. The rows of trees are windbreaks. Trinity Hill at center-right separates the farms (which may be amalgamated, for all I know).
Beyond Mt Possession farm is the Moorhouse Range, including Mt Possession and Mt Tripp. I’m not sure if either is visible.
Continuing north?
According to Wilderness Magazine (no author, 2016),
From the summit, an old fence line wanders vaguely north along the tops providing plenty of options to drop down the Clent Hills, many ridges into the Stour River Valley or ultimately travel all the way to Lake Emily.
If you have done this, or if you know of any page covering this route in more detail, please let me know below! I would be more likely to attempt it north to south, so as to ascend off-track, and finish on this track as the light fades.
Being a through-hike, it must involve two cars, or else one car and a mountain bicycle to make the connection (and be picked up later).
Hunting
Most of the route is in a hunting area. Hunters are forbidden to “discharge firearms near tracks, huts, campsites, road-ends or any other public place.” I have hiked in more than 30 hunting areas, and only passed hunters twice - this wasn’t one of those hikes.
Here is the DOC topomap with all hunting areas visible.
Name
The mountain is very likely named for the Battle of Barrosa in the Napoleonic Wars. The British and the Spanish defeated the French on a beach called Barrosa, near Cádiz, Andalusia, Spain.
The name also made its way to a valley in South Australia, where the spelling shifted to Barossa, perhaps under the influence of Barbarossa, the Italian word for red-beard and a nickname/epithet of an important Holy Roman Emperor. Interestingly, this region of Australia has its own German dialect, Barossa-Deutsch.
Other pages about this hike
https://www.alltrails.com/trail/new-zealand/canterbury/mount-barrosa-track
https://www.wildernessmag.co.nz/trip/mt-barrosa-summit-track-hakatere-conservation-park/ (GPX)
Pages about this region
Nearby hikes that I haven’t done
https://hikingscenery.com/moorhouse-range-tops-tenahaun-conservation-area/
https://hikingscenery.com/mt-taylor-ascent-hakatere-conservation-park/
https://hikingscenery.com/mt-harper-circuit-hakatere-conservation-park/
Mt Barrosa seen from Mt Guy
Mt Barrosa is just left of center. I’m not sure if Mt Somers is visible above Mt Barrosa. Left of Mt Barrosa is Mt Taylor. Far left, the Southern Alps.
Trinity Hill is just right of center. To the right of it are Mt Possession, Lake Emma, and Mt Harper in the Harper Range. At far right is the Two Thumb Range.